This online workshop is part of a two-year international project, funded by the AHRC, exploring the global history of treason through the centuries. Despite the topicality of ‘treason’ in our present-day world – as the ultimate crime or in violent political rhetoric – the subject is still under-researched conceptually. How traitors are interpreted tells us much about the character of any regime and the power structures in any society; it reveals the regime’s relationship with its citizens. ‘Treason’ also serves as a touchstone for that regime’s (in)stability, highlighting the evolving threats which a state imagines in terms of its domestic and foreign security.

This is the first of three workshops on treason. It focuses on legal frameworks: how treason has been interpreted and prosecuted in law from the ancient world until the present day. (The second workshop will discuss the cultural representation of traitors). We welcome papers from any era or continent in order to discuss the subject comparatively across time and space. Through an international comparison of different case studies we expect to find both continuities and differences in the legal perspective and the treatment of ‘traitors’.

Key themes for the workshop will be:
- What has been the legal definition of treason?
- What semantics or metaphors have legal regimes employed to define treason, and what historical traditions or narratives have shaped these definitions?
- How have these evolved through the centuries under different regimes?
- How precise or imprecise is the legal concept? Has due legal process been observed or is it often manipulated to ensure a conviction?
- How has the crime of treason been prosecuted and punished?
- When and why do regimes or governments turn to the law to manage ‘traitors’?
- How have ‘traitors’ themselves behaved in the judicial context (in the court or on the scaffold)? Has their agency produced a change in the legal framework?

If you wish to present a paper, please send a draft title, an abstract of 200 words and a short CV to Professor Mark Cornwall: jmc3@soton.ac.uk (Deadline: 15 December 2024)

Source: A Global History of Treason: The Legal Framework., in: H-Soz-Kult, 06.11.2024, http://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-151168.