TRANSCRIPT OF THE OFFICIAL LETTER
November 4, 2022
Dear Juanita Solano and Blanca Serrano,
I am writing you both today on behalf of the Digital Humanities Caucus of the American Studies Association to congratulate you and your project, La fiebre del banano/Banana Craze, on winning the Garfinkel Prize. The Garfinkel Prize in Digital Humanities is an award that honors the DH Caucus founder Susan Garfinkel for her longstanding service to the caucus and her commitment to an inclusive, interdisciplinary, welcoming Digital Humanities. The annual award recognizes excellent work that grapples with urgent questions that were specifically situated in practices of studying at the intersection of American Studies and Digital Humanities.
The DH Caucus is pleased to award the 2021 Garfinkel Prize to Banana Craze. The caucus reviewers were particularly impressed by this bilingual project, available in Spanish and English, and its engaging and user-friendly interface that allows for a variety of entry points to the material through images and visual arts.
As a caucus, we want to recognize the novel way in which La fiebre del banano/Banana uses banana imagery in contemporary Latin American art to draw attention to long standing politics and history of the banana and its associated iconography. As a database, Banana Craze is articulated through alphabetical, chronological, geographical, and thematic search parameters that allow links to be made between artworks, artists and contexts. Banana Craze offers a full and comprehensive look at bananas in contemporary art, spanning decades and encompassing many countries as well as embracing artistic practices shaped by the diaspora.
Many congratulations for this achievement!
Sincerely,
Anne Cong-Huyen