Freedom, Fugitivity, and Revolt in the Global Netherlandish World, ca.1500-1800

This session explores the distinct but related notions of freedom, fugitivity, and revolt in art of the global Netherlandish world, ca.1500–1800. Freedom, understood as the state of being unencumbered by restrictions, restraints, or oppression, is often seen as a defining feature of the early modern Netherlands, where political revolt, religious reform, economic endeavor, and artistic experimentation resulted in newfound freedoms for certain populations. But alongside these often precarious freedoms, there remained hierarchies of power that kept people locked in systems of repression, subjugation, and exploitation. In response, historical subjects turned to strategic practices of fugitivity and revolt, both overt and subtle, in an effort to resist domination and create alternative spaces of personal and collective liberty. This panel will examine concepts of freedom/unfreedom capaciously, as a labor status, an artistic practice, and a theoretical question. We build upon the insights of scholars within and beyond art history, including Saidiya Hartman, Neil Roberts, and Tina Campt, among others. We welcome interdisciplinary and methodologically innovative approaches, particularly those engaging with Black studies, Indigenous studies, gender and queer theory, and decolonial critique.

Potential topics include:

• Depictions of forced labor including slavery, serfdom, and indentured servitude
• Depictions of fugitives, maroons, revolutionaries, and diasporic communities
• Representations of individual and collective acts of resistance
• Mapping spaces/sites/locations of freedom, fugitivity, and revolt
• Objects made by forced laborers or those who achieved freedom
• Visual culture around rebellions and uprisings
• Artistic freedom and creativity
• Coded imagery and subversive aesthetics
• Absences in the archive and/as fugitivity