NOT P(?) Nobel Prize for Literature Canceled for 2018 "Who would really care to accept this award under the current circumstances?"

[Mark Kohut]

So, next year someone will* want* to accept; who would not this year? They
must think so.
I would think that they must have designs for an overhaul of the Academy
choosers for that to hold true.

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 6:33 AM, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
wrote:

> NYT May 04
>
> No 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, Panel Says Amid Sex Scandal
>
> By CHRISTINA ANDERSON and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAMAY 4, 2018
>
> STOCKHOLM — The Swedish panel that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature
> said on Friday that it would take the extraordinary step of not naming a
> laureate this year — not because of a shortage of deserving writers, but
> because of the infighting and public outrage that have engulfed the group
> over a sexual abuse scandal.
>
> The Swedish Academy said it would postpone the 2018 award until next year,
> when it will name two winners, making this the first year since World War
> II that the panel has decided not to bestow one of the world’s most revered
> cultural honors. The academy is involved only in the literature award, so
> other Nobel Prizes are not affected.
>
> Though the prizes should be awarded annually, they can be postponed or
> skipped “when a situation in a prize-awarding institution arises that is so
> serious that a prize decision will not be perceived as credible,”
> Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, which governs all of
> the prizes, said in a statement posted online Friday morning. “The crisis
> in the Swedish Academy has adversely affected the Nobel Prize. Their
> decision underscores the seriousness of the situation and will help
> safeguard the long-term reputation of the Nobel Prize.”
>
> Peter Englund, a member of the academy, wrote in an email: “I think this
> was a wise decision, considering both the inner turmoil of the Academy and
> the subsequent bloodletting of people and competence, and the general
> standing of the prize. Who would really care to accept this award under the
> current circumstances?”
>
> The announcement that there will be no 2018 prize is the latest in a series
> of blows to the academy that, occurring in the glare of the #MeToo
> movement, have drawn worldwide attention.
>
>
> In Nobel Scandal, a Man Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct. A Woman Takes the
> Fall. APRIL 12, 2018
>
> In November, a Swedish newspaper reported that 18 women said they had been
> sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-Claude Arnault, who is closely tied
> to the Swedish Academy and is accused of using his stature in the arts
> world to try to coerce women into sex. Other allegations against him
> emerged later, including a report that Mr. Arnault had groped Sweden’s
> crown princess, Victoria.
>
> Through his lawyer, he has denied all of the allegations.
>
> Mr. Arnault, a photographer, is married to a member of the academy,
> Katarina Frostenson; is a close friend to other members; and is co-owner,
> with Ms. Frostenson, of Forum, a cultural center in Stockholm that received
> funding from the academy. Some events were said to have occurred at
> academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris, and at least one woman’s
> complaints to the academy about Mr. Arnault more than 20 years ago were
> rebuffed.
>
> The crisis escalated when the academy dismissed another member, Sara
> Danius, as its permanent secretary, the group’s chief official — the first
> woman to hold that post — though she remained part of the panel. She had
> severed the group’s ties with Mr. Arnault and Forum, and commissioned an
> investigation of the academy from a law firm.
>
> Her demotion prompted mass protests by critics who said that a woman had
> suffered for the misdeeds of a man, and that Ms. Danius had been punished
> for trying to introduce openness and accountability to a group that
> preferred to close ranks.
>
> In practical terms, the academy was prepared to stick to its usual
> schedule, winnowing potential laureates to a shortlist by summer and
> anointing a prize winner in October, its acting permanent secretary, Anders
> Olsson, told Swedish Radio on Friday. “But confidence in the academy from
> the world around us has sunk drastically in the past half year,” he said,
> “and that is the decisive reason that we are postponing the prize.”
>
>
> The decision not to award the literature prize this year “is a sensational
> piece of news, but it was the only possible decision,” Bjorn Wiman, culture
> editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, told Swedish Radio. “It
> wasn’t possible under these conditions to appoint a winner. It would have
> been an insult to anyone who received it.”
>
> Some of the academy’s 18 members resigned over Ms. Frostenson’s continued
> membership, and several more quit over the treatment of Ms. Danius. That
> left the group with 10 active members — too few, under its rules, to elect
> new members.
>
> But academy appointments are for life, and until this week, the
> organization’s rules did not provide for resignations; it viewed those who
> quit as members who had become inactive, but could not be replaced.
>
> On Wednesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf, the academy’s patron, who said he had
> followed the matter “with great concern,” announced that he had changed the
> academy’s rules to allow members to leave, and to allow the panel to
> replace any member who had been inactive for two years. It was a rare
> intervention by the monarch, whose role is mostly ceremonial.
>
> Mr. Olsson said: “We are bringing in legal expertise and we are going to
> get better at what we do. We must vote in new members, and fast.” He
> promised increased transparency, and “more and better dialogue” with the
> royal court and the Nobel Foundation.
>
> After meeting on Thursday, members of the academy had voiced optimism that
> the prize could be awarded in October, as usual.
>
> “I see it as self-evident that we are still capable of awarding the prize,”
> Kristina Lugn, a panel member, told Dagens Nyheter. “We have a short
> nomination list with five candidates left. If we can’t do this then I think
> everyone should resign.”
>
> Such comments raise the possibility that the Nobel Foundation might have
> pressured the Swedish Academy to change its position.
>
> “The Nobel Foundation presumes that the Swedish Academy will now put all
> its efforts into the task of restoring its credibility as a prize-awarding
> institution,” Mr. Heldin, the foundation chairman said, “and that the
> academy will report the concrete actions that are undertaken.”
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>