Beatrice de Graaf, born in Putten, the Netherlands, in 1976. Ph.D. from Utrecht University. Associate Professor at Leiden University, Campus The Hague.
Fellow (1 September 2010 – 30 June 2011)
Terrorists on Trial: The Courtroom as Theatre
Within the NIAS Research Theme Group “Terrorists on Trial. The Court Room as a Stage in the Struggle for Publicity, Public Support and Legitimacy” I will develop a framework of the ‘performative power’ of terrorism trials, meaning the ways in which terrorism trials have a social and political impact that supersedes their factual judicial content. I will investigate a number of historical and current trials such as the Hofstadgroup trial, the Sauerlandgruppe or the Dutch and German trials of the 1970s, and identify the main actors and the way they contributed in transforming the courtroom into a public and political stage on which they performed their drama. When do terrorist trials turn into a social and moral drama, and when do these trials remain an isolated ‘Kammerspiel’?
Beatrice de Graaf, Theater van de angst. De strijd tegen terrorisme in Nederland, Duitsland, Italië en Amerika (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Boom, 2010).
Beatrice de Graaf, “Bringing politics back in. The introduction of ‘the performative power’ of counterterrorism” (together with Bob de Graaff), in: Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 3, (August 2010), No. 2, p. 263–277.
Beatrice de Graaf, Isabelle Duyvesteyn (eds.), Terroristen en hun bestrijders, vroeger en nu (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007).
http://hum.leiden.edu/history/staff/graafbade.html