Images of Shame

At the zone of intersection between imagery, law, and the economy, the defamatory image is charged with a particularly explosive significance. While a “pedagogy of shame” was used in the Late Middle Ages in order to punish debtors and other violators of contracts, the defamatory image remains to this day a vehicle for the moral denunciation and pejorative depiction of individuals who have violated the law. The contributions in this volume discuss the “magical force” exerted by defamatory imagery as well as the role of public humiliation in legal practice, including the “pittura infamante” and the general use of imagery in law.