This workshop builds on our previous discussions about the difficulty of defining treason – a challenge we now aim to use productively. Treason is not a fixed or universal category but a historically contingent and culturally constructed concept. A cultural history perspective does not treat treason as a self-evident act or static legal classification but asks how it has been framed, negotiated, and represented in different historical contexts. Treason emerges in legal, political, religious, and social settings, but it is always shaped by language, symbols, things, and interpretation. The figure of the traitor plays a crucial role in this process: treason itself is often abstract, but the traitor makes it visible, personifying betrayal and embedding it in moral, political, and emotional narratives. This workshop explores how treason has been conceptualized and visualized across time, how it has been emotionally and rhetorically charged, and how it has functioned in different media.
