Conjunctions: Verbal-Visual Relations (review)

Edson, Laurie, ed. Conjunctions: Verbal-Visual Relations: San Diego: San Diego State University Press, 1996. Pp.331. $20.

Conjunctions celebrates the fertile encounter of the visual and the verbal in a series of essays as diverse as they are provocative. In this, the volume fulfills its function as homage to the rich and varied intellect of Renée Riese Hubert. Prolific and innovative interpreter of text/image relationships (her bibliography fills 14 pages), Renée Hubert has also made a lasting mark as the generous facilitator of the work of others, as this collection amply demonstrates. Editor Laurie Edson has brought together pieces by Renée’s friends and colleagues, some of whom are former students. Eric Haskell’s lovely introductory homage tells of their pleasure in having become, thanks [End Page 108] to Renée’s always graceful and generous mentoring, her peers. In their obvious pleasure in thinking “for Renée” as they wrote, the authors fulfill any festschrift’s deepest and most fundamental purpose, that of charting intellectual territory through affiliation.