By highlighting the interplay between esotericism, conspiracy theory, and fandom, Cypher Culture examines how marginalized and embattled groups learn to read cultural texts for hidden meanings in hostile environments. Drawing on Leo Strauss’s theory of esotericism, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman argue that “reading between the lines” has moved from classical philosophy into popular culture, where queer fandoms, political extremists, and others uncover whispered messages in mass ...

In A Feeling of Wrongness, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman confront the rhetorical challenge inherent in the concept of pessimism by analyzing how it is represented in an eclectic range of texts on the fringes of popular culture, from adult animated cartoons to speculative fiction.Packer and Stoneman explore how narratives such as True Detective, Rick and Morty, Final Fantasy VII, Lovecraftian weird fiction, and the pop ideology of transhumanism...