a publishing dilemma

[Gerald Cohen]

    I would like to encourage the Kantowitzes to publish their work;
it would be a shame if their scholarly book-length manuscript
remained largely inaccessible to the scholarly community.
    A few possibilities come to mind. They can arrange to have the
book published themselves, with a camera-ready copy. A very limited
edition (100 copies; fewer, if necessary) should keep the
publication-cost reasonable. They can then put a rather high price on
the book to cover the costs of further printings, if necessary. The
key to recognition is to get the book reviewed in at least one
leading scholarly journal.
     I'd also consider publishing at least parts of the book in my
_Comments on Etymology_. In any case, if the Kantowitzes are willing
to get the project cranked up again, I'd be happy to brainstorm with
them about the best way to proceed.

--Gerald Cohen
Professor of German and Russian
(research specialty: etymology)

>
>Date:         Tue, 3 Apr 2001 20:19:41 -0500
>From: nathan & joanne kantrowitz <kant1 at RCNCHICAGO.COM>
>Subject:      [Fwd: [Fwd: a publishing dilemma]]
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>Following Allan Metcalf's suggestion, I am sending the following
>inquiry to the ADS list serve.  I will be pleased to receive your
>communications on this dilemma.  Joanne Spencer Kantrowitz, Ph.D.,
>Chicago, 1967
>
>-------- Original Message -------- Subject:  a publishing dilemma
>Date:  Fri, 30 Mar 2001 22:52:31 -0600 From:  nathan & joanne
>kantrowitz <kant1 at rcnchicago.com> Organization:  Writers To:
>AAllan at aol.com
>
>Dear Professor Metcalf,
>We have had the strange experience recently of meeting a prison
>language research professor who had been searching for our study in
>vain.  That is/was Stateville Names which was cited by McDavid and
>Maurer in their revision of Mencken, was supposed to be published by
>PADS around 1965 and then was shot down over fear of right-wing
>attack and threat to the first federal grant forthcoming for
>Cassidy's dictionary. The Ms. was the first full study of prison
>language as malediction.   The Ms. languished with a small publisher
>who went defunct after losing tenure in the 70's.  In disgust, we
>laid the book aside.
>One portion of it was published by Alan Dundes in his Mother Wit
>anthology.  In other words, the work has been footnoted, listed in
>bibliographies (?), but no one had access to it because it was never
>published.  Two copies exist in typescript:  one is deposited with
>the papers of David W. Maurer at the University of Louisville; the
>other is with the Chicago Historical Society in the Stateville
>Papers of Nathan Kantrowitz.
>Whether this is worth posting on the web or listed with an on-demand
>publisher, I haven't the slightest idea.  Perhaps, for the sake of
>future scholars (few though they may be), the locations of the ms.
>should be published somewhere in the journals of ADS.  What do you
>think of that suggestion?
>Each of us went on to publish other sorts of things in other sorts
>of media, but we never returned to the linguistic group after the
>deaths of Raven and Dave who were our chief contacts and friends,
>albeit powerless in the face of Cassidy's concerns.  Do you by any
>chance have an e-mail address for Alan Dundes?  His book is still in
>print, but I would like to correct his description of my work.  (I
>was not a faculty wife!).  For a rather amusing essay detailing who
>we are, you might consult Nathan Kantrowitz's
>1990 book, Close Control.
>Best wishes,
>
>Joanne Spencer Kantrowitz
>
>--
>MZ
>