By: Zayd Hamid, CARP Intern After World War I, the German state transformed from an illiberal constitutional monarchy to a semi-liberal republic. That republic decayed into a fascist dictatorship approximately a decade later. That latter transformation also gave rise to one of history’s most brutal dictators: Adolf Hitler. Hitler established a hegemonic cult of personality …
Continue reading A Broken Crown: the Kaiser’s Rebuke of Hitler
By Henri van Nispen Please allow me to begin with a question: Do you, dear reader, think that allowing music from Jewish composers in the Bayreuth opera house in Germany can compensate for Richard Wagner’s character assassination of the Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer? The Bayreuth opera house was built under strict guidance by Wagner and …
Continue reading “Effects without cause”: Wagner’s character assassination of Meyerbeer
By Andrew Douglas The race for the White House between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden gets uglier by the day. Join the Washington Examiner and CARP Lab for the 3rd and final webinar on character assassination and the 2020 presidential race. Hear from leading academics and journalists about how the topsy-turvy Trump-Biden …
Continue reading Character Assassination in the 2020 Presidential Race: A New Low?
By Mikayla Knutson French reverence of the monarch shifted dramatically between Louis XIV to Louis XVI as the pendulum shifted from extreme character enhancement to rampant character assassination. Under Louis XIV (1643-1715), a comprehensive program glorified the Sun King and engineered his reputation and image to further his political power. This initiative channeled French elite …
Continue reading Part I: Image Control and Character Enhancement under Louis XIV
Across the world, statues of historical figures have recently become the focus of fierce discussion. However, this is hardly a new phenomenon. From Egyptian pharaohs to American presidents, monuments celebrating the high and mighty have always been contested, defaced and removed. In a webinar hosted by CARP Lab, historian Martijn Icks and political psychologist Eric …
Continue reading Webinar #6: Fallen Idols: Toppling Statues throughout the Ages
If you missed the webinar on May 15, 2020, featuring Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev discussing Dr. Icks's chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Mangement, it's now available here on YouTube. Martijn Icks and Eric Shiraev delved into how women throughout history have become targets of character assassination. From Cleopatra to …
Continue reading Webinar #3: Evil Queens and Wicked Empresses
By Martijn Icks In December 62 BCE, Rome was gripped by a bizarre scandal. Publius Clodius Pulcher, a young man from a noble family, had been caught trespassing in the house of one of the most prominent and powerful men in the city: none other than Julius Caesar. He had been trying to sneak in …
By Eric Shiraev The composer Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) could not have even thought about becoming one of the most noticeable victims of character assassination after his death. He had a dynamic and fruitful musical life while serving as Kapellmeister to the emperor of Austria. Yet Salieri is known today to most people as a man …
By Martijn Icks On June 21st, Edwina Hagen and I organized the colloquium “Character Assassination! Media and Mudslinging from Caligula to King Gorilla” in Amsterdam. We invited experts on various periods in Western history to discuss practices of character assassination from an historical perspective. Comparing various case studies, we hoped to shed light on some …
By Martijn Icks In my previous blog, I argued for the importance of historical perspectives on character assassination. However, historical research also comes with its own challenges and limitations. Let’s have a look at some of these. Perhaps the most obvious challenge is the danger of anachronism: we should be very careful not to assume …
Continue reading Character Assassination: The Historical Perspective [Part 2]
Character Assassination and Reputation Politics Research Lab 