‘Milli Vanilli’ has become synonymous with imposture. It is not the songs created by producer Frank Farian that first come to mind when many people hear the band name, but rather the deception behind it, as the supposed singers Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan did not sing a single note in ‘their’ songs. However, contrary to the widely held narrative perpetuated by the media, it was not a botched playback that exposed the deception, but creator and producer Frank Farian himself. This article explores how the scandal unfolded, what consequences it had for those involved and for the world of pop music, and what roles were played by Farian, the duo Pilatus-Morvan, and the ongoing conflict between them. The case represents an unusual instance of “forced imposture”. It is rooted in the long history of the widely racist construction and portrayal of supposedly foreign cultures in German pop music.
Taking a transepochal, comparative approach, this article analyses two exemplary cases of ‘In-digenous identity fraud’. The first traces the life and career of Edgar Laplante, active in the 1910s and 1920s. Assuming Native American identities, he travelled across North America and Eu-rope as Tom Longboat, Chief White Elk, or Capo Cervo Bianco, grifting and spending large sums of money. The second examines the pursuits of Craig Carpenter from the 1950s to the 1970s, who likewise claimed to be Native American but built a life of activism on this assumed identity; he played a critical role in infusing Hopi traditionalism with elements of Western metaphysics. Comparing these two cases of transnationally active ‘pretendians’ across time allows to draw conclusions about this specific form of ethnic imposture. While both cases involve false claims to Indigenous descent, Edgar Laplante was a prototypical impostor who deliberately assumed a false identity for cultural prestige and material gain. Craig Carpenter, by contrast, was a Neo Indian who felt a deep spiritual connection to Native American traditions that he could explain only through biological descent. Together, these cases show that Indigenous identity fraud is a transnational and transepochal phenomenon, even as shifts in the media landscape and broader sociocultural contexts have transformed the character of such forms of ‘playing’ and ‘becoming Indian’.
Exploring the rise and fall of two financial criminals, the article examines practices and perceptions of financial fraud in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In implementing what is nowadays known as a ‘Ponzi scheme,’ both fraudsters – Adele Spitzeder (‘Dachauer Bank’) and Damara Bertges and her colleagues (‘European Kings Club’) – succeeded in gaining the trust of their clients in a time of economic upheaval, before using client assets to finance payouts to other clients. In both cases, they held out a promise not only of high returns, but also of the social advancement that they themselves seemed to have accomplished. The article examines financial fraud as a social practice, in which the appearance and actions of fraudsters and middlemen are just as central as the expectations and attributions of clients and journalists. I interpret financial fraud as a collective performance, sustained by the investors’ imaginations: by participating in the imposture and clinging to it despite warnings and its exposure, they preemptively experience their own social ascent in an imagined future. I argue that both frauds exploited a smoldering social tension that had gained momentum during a period of heightened economic change: tensions tied to a rural-urban divide, economic class and power, or religious differences. As the comparative perspective reveals, the fraudsters also used a pre-existing critique of the economic system. Through their accessibility, charitable activities, and social interactions, they seemed to offer their clients a counter-model to an ‘unfeeling’ economic order allegedly dominated by greedy elites. In each case, their services and rhetoric were circulated through media outlets, which celebrated their respective investment models as counter-models resistant to common economic practices and social hierarchies. The article argues that the phenomenon of financial fraud serves as a prism, focusing and concentrating societal conflicts, critiques, and imaginaries.
This article focuses on the unique case of Devendra Nath Bannerjea, an Indian colonial migrant, and his deceptive interactions with the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) of the League of Nations. Bannerjea, who critically viewed British colonial rule in India, was a member of the ICIC from 1922 to 1924. To this day, he is erroneously described in the official history and in academic work on the ICIC as a professor of political economy from the University of Calcutta. In contrast to other Indian impostors and anti-imperial activists, Bannerjea did not change his name or alter his class or racial identity, though he shared the intention of gaining an advantage through his deception. His disguise primarily concerned his intellectual credentials as a reputed scholar. Bannerjea's case raises several questions concerning the workings of the League of Nations and of the British colonial government, as well as the implications of such imposturous impersonation in the context of representing colonial interests and statehood within an international organisation. Moreover, it prompts the question of what extent Bannerjea's facade of being a renowned scholar at the ICIC influenced his anti-imperialist agenda.
“Fake it till you make it”? According to the media, imposture has become epidemic. However, it is neither a new phenomenon nor one that has remained constant throughout history. Rather, as we argue, it is a socio-cultural phenomenon specific to the long 20 th century. The period around 1900, characterized by unprecedented social mobility, urbanization, mass media, and the anonymity of the metropolis, shaped modern imposture – both as a practice and a representation. This introduction sets the stage for a transnational history of imposture from the 1890s to the 1990s, examining how acts of imposture are remembered and how older narratives shape our understanding of imposture today. As this special issue reveals, imposture thrived in rapidly changing societies, where traditional roles and norms faced crisis and began to erode. Studying imposture reveals societal desires and accepted social conventions and cultural values. Against this backdrop, this introduction aims to historicize and conceptualize imposture by tracing this shifting phenomenon, its rich semantics, and its various representations throughout the 20 th century.
