regrets and thoughts

Sun Apr 13 00:53:33 UTC 2014

Catherine,

My dissertation is essentially written.  It's getting a new committee
member and defense date that seem to be the major hang-ups.

Dave

David Kaufman
Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas
Director, Kaw Nation Language Program

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 4:45 PM, Catherine Rudin <CaRudin1 at wsc.edu> wrote:

> Dave -- WRITE YOUR DISSERTATION!!!!!  :-)
>
> >>> David Kaufman <dvkanth2010 at GMAIL.COM> 4/12/2014 2:01 PM >>>
>  Just to follow up here, we are also working on trying to get Bob's
> remains (ashes) transported from Kansas City to Oklahoma for interment at
> the Washunga Cemetery (the Kaw Nation cemetery). I have been involved in
> Kaw Nation Cultural Committee meetings to try and get all these things
> taken care of, and have been in touch with Carolyn on an ongoing basis.
> There will be a memorial service here for him once the date is established
> for the interment. We have another meeting on Monday in which I hope the
> final interment date will be set, hopefully for within the next couple of
> weeks. (Carolyn herself does not plan to attend as it's a fairly long drive
> and she's still in the midst of taking care of financial and other
> arrangements since Bob's death.) I'm afraid that, due to all of these other
> pressing issues, including trying to get my own PhD completed and dealing
> with the transport and final interment of Bob's remains, I haven't got far
> enough yet in my planning to figure out what to do with all Bob's academic
> material from Lawrence, especially physical papers and files, once I get
> them. Storing some of this at KU or even at the Kaw Nation might be an
> option, but I agree that there needs to be an organized way to go through
> this and get it disseminated to all of us who are interested, as well as
> being archived somewhere accessible to the public - perhaps even the
> Smithsonian? I will have to do some homework around all this, but not until
> I've dealt with these other pressing topics first. Perhaps by the time I
> see everyone in Wisconsin I'll have a better idea of what to do and how to
> do it. I appreciate the offers of help and will let you know once I have a
> better handle on it all. Thanks!
>
> Dave
>
>  David Kaufman
> Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas
> Director, Kaw Nation Language Program
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Catherine Rudin <carudin1 at wsc.edu> wrote:
>
>> So, it looks to me like we're talking about at least two different
>> things, maybe three, all of which I would like to see done.
>>
>> (1) A collection of Bob's papers, to be published as a book and/or
>> perhaps a journal special issue. The Siouan archive collection would be a
>> good start on gathering these papers, though there might be others that he
>> never sent in. These would be work that was finished (or close to it) but
>> either not published or published in out-of-the-way places. Someone would
>> need to select which works to include, edit them (as has been pointed out,
>> some may not be quite ready for public consumption), and of course find a
>> publisher. Volunteers?
>>
>> (2) A different collection of less-polished or fragmentary material, to
>> be given to some appropriate archive. I imagine a lot of what Dave K will
>> find in the "garage full of files" will be notes, correspondence, class
>> handouts ... the kind of things that don't belong in a book or journal but
>> that might well be of great interest to future researchers. Yes, things do
>> get buried in archives, as someone said, but at least they are there for
>> some future person to dig up. Bob once sent me a bunch of his old class
>> handouts on comparative Romance; nothing publishable, but invaluable in
>> putting together my own Romance linguistics course. I bet there's lots of
>> similar stuff on Siouan in that garage. Someone (Dave K?) would need to
>> contact an archive & do some sorting...
>>
>> (3) A festschrift in Bob's honor. This would presumably be a selection of
>> papers on Siouan languages by some of us, though it might include a paper
>> or two of Bob's too. There was a suggestion earlier that it could serve as
>> a venue for some of the papers from the abandoned Comparative Siouan Syntax
>> project. This one would take a fair amount of cat-herding, getting people
>> to send papers in by some reasonable deadline, selecting, editing, finding
>> a publisher -- lots of work, but seems well worth doing.
>>
>> Let's talk about all of these in Madison. To answer Meredith's question
>> -- I think we should have a fairly good chunk of time (at least an hour???
>> perhaps at the end of an afternoon so it could run as long as needed?) Will
>> there be a separate chance to talk about Bob's life and what he meant to us
>> all, or are you picturing rolling a memorial together with talking about
>> publication plans?
>>
>> Sorry to go on at such length -- the thread seems to be getting a bit
>> fragmented and I'm hoping to gather it back together.
>> Catherine
>>
>> >>> Marianne Mithun <mithun at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU> 04/12/14 11:22 AM >>>
>> I completely agree with David. There is so much there, and when I've
>> asked
>> Bob about various things, he's come up with handouts from 25 years
>> earlier,
>> and papers from decades before or recently, all of them so valuable. A
>> tricky call of course. How many of us would like our unfinished work out
>> there. But so much of Bob's work was really finished.
>>
>> Marianne
>>
>> --On Saturday, April 12, 2014 7:34 AM -0600 ROOD DAVID S
>> <david.rood at COLORADO.EDU> wrote:
>>
>> > Dave, if Carolyn is willing, I think it would be much better to try to
>> > arrange for a book or a series of journal publications (e.g. a special
>> > issue of IJAL) rather than an archive. Things get buried in archives.
>> > However, I know that a lot of what Bob circulated to us was stuff he
>> > considered unfinished. The extent to which anyone else would consider
>> > that work publishable needs to be discussed with Carolyn.
>> >
>> > Best,
>> > David
>> >
>> > David S. Rood
>> > Dept. of Linguistics
>> > Univ. of Colorado
>> > 295 UCB
>> > Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>> > USA
>> > rood at colorado.edu
>> >
>> > On Fri, 11 Apr 2014, David Kaufman wrote:
>> >
>> >> I don't know if Bob expressed such an interest, at least not to me, and
>> >> possibly not to Carolyn either (she didn't mention it). I'd have to
>> look
>> >> into how we would go about submitting papers to these organizations for
>> >> their archives. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.
>> >>
>> >> Dave
>> >>
>> >> David Kaufman
>> >> Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas
>> >> Director, Kaw Nation Language Program
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 1:26 PM, David Costa
>> >> <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Did Bob ever express a preference as to where his papers should end
>> up?
>> >>> I would assume either the NAA or the APS would be best...
>> >>>
>> >>> Dave Costa
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Hi David and all,
>> >>>
>> >>> Sorry to hear David that you won't be able to make it to the SCLC this
>> >>> year.
>> >>>
>> >>> I know we have talked about doing a Festschrift in Bob's honor, and
>> this
>> >>> is certainly something we can discuss at the meeting. Hopefully our
>> >>> organizers can set aside some time on the schedule so we can all
>> >>> participate in this discussion.
>> >>>
>> >>> As for the CSD, I think it's a great idea to have it finalized and
>> >>> published in some form, either electronically or in print, or both.
>> >>>
>> >>> As concerns Bob's unpublished papers and computer files, Carolyn,
>> Bob's
>> >>> wife, and I have been in touch fairly regularly. Even before Bob's
>> >>> death, she said that she and Bob had discussed it and thought it would
>> >>> be best that I come up to their house and "clean out" his garage full
>> >>> of files, books, etc. Also, I plan to take a USB drive and download as
>> >>> much of his computer files as possible, at least some of which I know
>> >>> pertain to Kaw. I'll be happy to distribute whatever I find pertaining
>> >>> to other Siouan languages to those of you who want it. I'm hoping to
>> >>> go up and do this in the next couple of months, possibly in early June
>> >>> or so before it gets too hot. I know Carolyn is thinking about selling
>> >>> the house and moving up to be with family in Wisconsin, so this
>> >>> cleaning out will have to be done fairly soon anyway.
>> >>>
>> >>> Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted as plans for these things become
>> more
>> >>> concrete. Things are a bit crazy for me right now as I work full-time
>> >>> for the Kaw Nation and try to finish my dissertation without yet
>> having
>> >>> another committee member to substitute for Bob. I hope to defend in
>> >>> May, but I'm still awaiting final word on a new committee member and
>> >>> date from my advisor.
>> >>>
>> >>> Dave
>> >>>
>> >>> David Kaufman
>> >>> Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas
>> >>> Director, Kaw Nation Language Program
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 12:27 PM, ROOD DAVID S
>> >>> <david.rood at colorado.edu>wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> Hi, everyone,
>> >>>> My family schedule for at least part of the summer has finally
>> >>>> settled down, and I regret that it precludes me from attending the
>> SCLC
>> >>>> again this year. The earliest I could get to Madison would be
>> >>>> mid-afternoon on Saturday, hardly the appropriate time for
>> >>>> participating in the meeting.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I am very much interested in what is decided about honoring Bob
>> >>>> Rankin, however, and in what might be done to make his huge
>> >>>> contribution to the history of Siouan and the structure of Dhegiah
>> >>>> part of a permanent record. I know he has many papers that have never
>> >>>> been published, as well as many that are published here and there in
>> >>>> places we don't always know about. As early as 1984, at the workshop
>> >>>> that launched the Comparative Dictionary project, I proposed a
>> >>>> "collection of papers" volume that would be a place for his work (and
>> >>>> others), but that has never materialized. Moreover, for the last few
>> >>>> years Bob was the major player in the evolution of the
>> >>>> Comparative Dictionary. As most of you know, Iren Hartmann at the
>> >>>> MPI-Leipzig is working on creating a usable digital verson of the
>> CSD.
>> >>>> Of the original 5 participants (John Koontz, Wes Jones, Dick Carter,
>> >>>> Rankin and me) in the project, I guess I'm the only one who is still
>> >>>> interested and available, so I'm going to work with Iren to see if
>> >>>> that can't be finalized and formalized. There is quite a bit of
>> >>>> urgency here, because as many of you know, the structure of the MPI
>> in
>> >>>> Leipzig will change dramatically in May of 2015, and they will likely
>> >>>> no longer be interested in supporting Iren's work.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> If any of you have any thoughts on how best to move forward
>> >>>> with either Bob's legacy or the CSD, please discuss them at
>> >>>> the meeting and keep me informed. I don't feel like I know Carolyn
>> >>>> well enough to approach her about any of this; perhaps one of you
>> >>>> would be willing to help with that.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Best wishes to all for a fruitful and fun meeting.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> David
>> >>>>
>> >>>> David S. Rood
>> >>>> Dept. of Linguistics
>> >>>> Univ. of Colorado
>> >>>> 295 UCB
>> >>>> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>> >>>> USA
>> >>>> rood at colorado.edu
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>>
>
>
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