Winner, Slsa Socio-legal Theory And History Prize Shortlisted, The Hart-slsa Book Prize Spectacles And Specters Draws On Theories Of Performativity To Conceptualize The Entanglements Of Law And Political Violence, Offering A Radical Departure From Accounts That Consider Political Trials As Instrumental In Exercising Or Containing Political Violence. Legal Scholar Baak Ertur Argues Instead That Making Sense Of The Often Incalculable Interpenetrations Of Law, Politics, And Violence In Trials Requires Shifting The Focus Away From Law''s Instrumentality To Its Performativity. Ertr Develops A Theory Of Political Trials By Reconstructing And Building On A Legacy Of Critical Thought On Nuremberg In Close Engagement With Theories Of Performativity.