To celebrate the 385th anniversary of the Joyous Entry of Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand of Spain into Antwerp in 1635, which had been largely designed by Peter Paul Rubens, a conference was organized to present and discuss the current research on these lavish festivities held in the early modern Netherlands. Postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic Step by Step: Visualizing and Asserting Power in Netherlandish Joyous Entries took place virtually in December 2020 hosted by the Rubenianum in Antwerp. Focusing on these ephemeral, spectacular, and artistically ingenious events that shaped and transformed the cities of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent or The Hague, the presented papers highlighted in many different ways how power was asserted and negotiated between the ruler and the ruled during such entries. Additional focus was given to the theme of interdisciplinarity in the organization and execution of these events as well as in the modern scholarship needed to gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted entities that those festivities constituted.
The organizers of the conference aim at publishing the papers held at the conference and would like to invite submissions for further essays for the edited volume. The large audience emphasized that these early modern spectacles are of great interest for current research in the fields of historiography, art history, musicology, theater studies, or research on literature, among others. Therefore, we would like to invite additional contributors for this volume which wants to bring together current research on early modern Joyous Entries of the Netherlands (1500–1750) from different areas of study. Additionally, we would like to encourage the submission of abstracts that focus on other festivities in the Low Countries that are connected to the Joyous Entry tradition, among them burial processions, religious processions (i. e. ommegangen), weddings, or stately entries of foreign dignitaries. Essays could deal with single festivities, or even single ephemeral structures, comparative analyses, or utilize a distinctive interdisciplinary approach.
The deadline for submission is 1 June 2021. Please download the call for articles for more information.