Acknowledgements
The project that resulted in this volume was born during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. While its central idea was conceived in prior years, inspired by recent studies on space and time in early modern culture, it took shape in a series of remote meetings held between the spring of 2021 and early 2022. For all the obstacles that stood in the way of research during that difficult period, the new Zoom platform allowed us contributors to meet and collaborate in the moment from the intimacy of our far-flung homes and studies. We would not exclude that the peculiar digital dimension in which we met unconsciously kindled our reflections on imaginative space and time. In any case, our intellectual community was most congenial and allowed us to fashion individual contributions from the ground up based on a common set of questions. Later in 2022, as conventional conferences returned, more advanced versions of individual projects were presented at the Renaissance Society of America meeting in Dublin and the conference of the Historians of Netherlandish Art in Amsterdam.
Most of the papers drafted during that time have now found their home in this book. Of the original members of our team, Byron Hamann, Chiara Franceschini, Theresa Holler, and Anna Pawlak were regrettably unable to contribute to the volume. We are nevertheless most grateful for their participation in the early stages of the project, as they helped shape it in important ways. Matteo Al Kalak and Antoinina Bevan Zlatar joined the group in 2022 and offered contributions on the cultural and literary history of hell which significantly augmented the volume’s scope.
We wish to express our gratitude to our co-authors for their excellent contributions (and for their patience with us) and to the large group of anonymous peer reviewers who provided detailed feedback on the individual chapters. We are very fortunate to have worked once again with Jonathan Hoare, who, with his usual professionalism and keen eye, helped us create the index and review the proofs. Special thanks go to Karl Enenkel and the members of the Intersections Editorial Board, who once again supported and approved a project of ours with great enthusiasm. Last but not least, we gratefully acknowledge the expert and collegial editorial assistance of Gera van Bedaf and Ivo Romein.
Wietse de Boer
Christine Göttler
May 2024