Hysteria as a Shape-Shifting Forensic Psychiatric Diagnosis in the Netherlands ca. 1885-1960

Based on criminal court cases found in archives and newspapers, this article traces how the diagnosis of hysteria functioned in trials and Dutch forensic psychiatric practice ca. 1885–1960. Informed by Science and Technology Studies and praxiography, hysteria is studied as a ‘fire object'. It can make multiple relations with gender, which can be absent or present. This approach asks whether and how gender is important regarding hysteria. Gender only ‘stuck’ to hysteria in certain situations. In rape cases, hysteria took the form of lying and was connected to women. Although a woman's hysteria could be used as a reason to exonerate the male perpetrator's crime of murder, a man's hysteria never served to exculpate a female perpetrator of a crime. Signs on the body appeared to be very significant but did not suffice for a clear diagnosis. Inconsistencies during the psychiatric examination of the body therefore needed to be coordinated by pointing to other bodily symptoms, personal life stories, academic literature or logical reasoning. To analyse the ways hysteria functioned as a versatile fire object in the courtroom and pre-trial investigation alerts us to hysteria's shapeshifting potential that might explain the power of the hysteria label in twentieth-century medicine and culture

Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of the historiography in regard to forensic science, medicine and psychiatry. It sketches how insights from the cultural turn, the practice turn and Science and Technology Studies (STS) have impacted research on the history of forensics. Then, the three main arguments of the volume are introduced. Firstly, the book calls for a serious engagement with the meanings of the concept of modernity and its implications for the study of forensic science and medicine. Thus, it zooms in on the relationship between modernity and the presumed shift from human witnesses to material evidence; on the impact of authoritarian regimes on the functioning of forensic experts; and on the role of modern epistemic virtues such as objectivity, but also of the modern media and gender images. Secondly, the importance of studying forensic practices (in contrast to forensic institutions or scientific discourses) is highlighted. Thirdly, the book suggests exploring the notion of ‘forensic culture’ in more detail. Important elements of a definition of forensic culture may include - in addition to technology and the professionalisation of experts - ideology (political ideology, but also ideas on religion, class, race and gender), the role of the media, legal systems and the formulation of criminal and procedural law. The Introduction shows how all chapters engage with these themes and closes by suggesting themes to be explored by future research

Doing law, psychiatric expertise and “crimes of passion” in the Netherlands and Russia in the twentieth century

This chapter compares how ‘crimes of passion’ were defined in law and prosecuted in practice in Russia and the Netherlands in the twentieth century. Taking the approach of ‘doing law’, which entails looking at justice as a process of negotiation involving many participants, the chapter aims to show that what a ‘crime of passion’ is, is not self-evident: it is continually debated and negotiated by multiple actors, such as the legislature, the judiciary and psychiatrists. Both in Russia and the Netherlands the image of ‘crimes of passion’ revolved around ‘othering’: these crimes were seen as typical of other countries or classes, thus confirming a certain self-image. The Soviet socialist discourse framed ‘capitalist’ jealousy – connected to private property and possessiveness – as its opposite. In the Netherlands, the ‘moderate’, ‘rational’ and ‘emancipated’ Dutch contrasted themselves with the passionate French and Italians who were more lenient towards perpetrators trying to uphold their honour. Comparing Russian and Dutch forensic cultures can inform us on the discrepancy between cultural-political images of a certain crime and forensic and legal practice. In the Netherlands, despite the claim that this country was not familiar with the crime of passion, in practice lawyers, prosecutors and psychiatrists regarded the pathology underlying this criminal behaviour as a serious diagnosis, potentially serving to mitigate the sentence of the (often male) perpetrator. In Russia, legal practice not only connected jealousy killings to ‘capitalist’ greed, but also to the offender’s illiteracy, lack of poor education or mental abnormalities

‘An astonishing human failure’: The influence of gender on the image of perpetrators of infanticide in the courtroom and crime reporting in the Netherlands, 1960-1989

This article discusses the representation of parents who killed their children in Dutch newspapers in 1960–1989. It concludes that infanticidal women were portrayed as irrational, ill, pathetic, and passive, as well as not fully responsible for their crimes. When they displayed emotions in court and proved their love for their children, journalists pitied them, thus underlining a traditional image of femininity and motherhood. Fathers, however, were initially depicted as cold-blooded and responsible for their selfish acts. Rationality took centre stage in these stories, which meant the press allocated more moral responsibility to fathers. If men showed emotions during the trial and there was proof of good fatherhood, they were described with more compassion. From the 1980s journalists demonstrated more sympathy for fathers’ sense of powerlessness, dovetailing with new ideals of fatherhood. This confirms Joan Scott’s notion of gender as a binary opposition, but shows how femininity, rather than masculinity, was the ideal and demonstrates how views on parenthood interact with (changing views on) gender in images of perpetrators of infanticide

Forensic cultures in modern Europe

This edited volume examines the performance of physicians, psychiatrists and other scientists as expert witnesses in modern European courts of law and police investigations. Its chapters discuss cases from criminal, civil and international law to parse the impact of forensic evidence and expertise in different European countries (Scotland, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Norway and the Netherlands) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They show how modern forensic science and technology was inextricably entangled with political ideology, gender norms, changes in the law and legal systems. New scientific ideas and technology, such as blood tests and DNA, helped develop forensic science, but did not necessarily lead to a straightforward acceptance of expertise in the courtroom. Discussing fascinating case studies, the chapters in this book highlight how the ideology of authoritarian and liberal regimes affected the practical enactment of forensic expertise. They also emphasise the influence of images of masculinity and femininity on the performance of experts and their assessment of evidence, victims and perpetrators, for example in cases of rape, infanticide and crimes of passion. This book is an important contribution to our knowledge of modern European forensic practices, which, as several chapters underline, sometimes surprisingly diverge from institutional regulations

The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000

The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000). This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline