Max Nänny would have smiled, somewhat ironically, at the notion of an 'hommage'. Those who knew him will remember his wry humour and gentle wisdom, and horror of ostentation, and hatred of long speeches, and impatience of people at conferences running over their time limits.
I first met him at the first conference, in Amsterdam, way back in 1987, and came to know him very well when we organized together the second conference in Zürich in 1990, the big one that established, also formally, this organization.
His main theoretical interest was literary iconicity, a field which he virtually invented, and for which he founded together with Olga Fisher in Amsterdam the 'Iconicity in Language and Literature' symposia, where he could amaze us with his detailed readings of well-known texts in which he, miraculously, always found patterns of chiasmus and palindrome: the sequence which reverses its order in the second half. In doing so he opened up new discussions of how reversals, symmetries and central still points create a spatial sort of architecture in literary texts.
Here, today, I remember him as one of the kinder founding fathers of IAWIS, and relive my sadness when I heard of his death of cancer on the 4th of February, 2006.
Yes, he would have smiled, somewhat ironically, at the idea that there would be a Max Nänny Prize. But he would also be pleased, and say so, somewhat grimly; and he would peruse the manuscript that was to be awarded this prize named after him, and would expect to find there what he himself strove after, and succeeded in: no ostentation, no redundancy, but quiet perfection.
The jury has read over thirty manuscripts, and has finally shortlisted three submissions. Here is their report:
The winner of the Max Nänny Prize for Best Article in Word and Image Studies 2008 is Anna Sigrídur Arnar, Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Design, at Minnesota State University, for her article " 'A Modern popular poem': Stéphane Mallarmé on the visual, rhetorical and democratric potential of the fin-de-siècle newspaper", published in the journal Word & Image, vol. 22: 4 (December 2006).
In choosing this article, the selection committee commended the originality and cogency of its argument, the depth and extent of its research, the clarity of its writing, and the breadth of issues it called into play [...] Combining rigorous historicization, close readings of texts and images, and theoretical reflection grounded in the works studied, this study represents, in the judgment of the committee, the true spirit of the Nänny Award, and an exceptional example of the intellectual and scholarly values of our Association.
Two honourable mentions were also awarded: Stefano Riccioni, "Segni epigrafici e sistemi illustrativi 'alla greca' nel mosaico di San Clemente a Roma", published in a volume entitled Medioevo mediterraneo in 2007; and Katalin Orbán, "Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman's Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers", published in the journal Representations in 2007.
Peter de Voogd
|
