The 2019 Amsterdam Colloquium

Character assassination is a phenomenon that can be found in every historical epoch. Throughout the ages,
numerous kings, queens, generals, clergymen, thinkers and rebels have suffered visual and verbal attacks
which sought to undermine their prestige and cast them in a negative light. While this is currently done
through tweets and campaign ads, in previous ages speeches, chronicles and pamphlets were the weapons of
choice. Their effects were no less devastating. The reputation of notorious figures such as Emperor Caligula,
the “Iron Duke” of Alba and the Dutch “King Gorilla” (William III) has been determined by character attacks
to this day.

This colloquium places character assassination in historical perspective. In doing so, we focus primarily
on persons from the political sphere: kings, aristocrats, statesmen. Can we identify constant factors through
time in the ways these people’s reputations were attacked and in the motives behind these attacks? How have
acts of character assassination been influenced by changing historical circumstances, particularly by the
introduction of new technologies and media such as the printing press, the newspaper and radio? And can
historians make use of methods and models from the political and social sciences to analyse character
assassination? By discussing and comparing case studies from various historical epochs, we hope to shed
light on these questions.