regrets and thoughts

[Kathleen D. Shea]

Dear Siouanists,

I'm sorry to be so late registering my thoughts about all of this. I was away from home and tied up with family issues in California from December 23 to early March, and I arrived home to find 2 1/2 months of mail waiting for me and out-of-town visitors. I was able to attend the memorial for Bob on March 11 at KU. It was a very nice, fittingly informal gathering, with refreshments, some flowers, a display of pictures set out on some broadcloth blankets (traditional red and blue) given to him by the Kaws, and a stream of people who knew Bob. For me, it was good to see and talk with many old friends I hadn't seen in years. At the memorial, the chair of KU's linguistics department, Allard Jongman, and his wife, Joan Sereno, also a professor in the department, were there. I mentioned to them that Bob had many unpublished papers that he had generously shared with others that I would like to see published so that they would be readily accessible. Allard suggested that perhaps they could be published as a separate volume of the Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (KWPL), where Bob has published before. I think that we could discuss this at the upcoming Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference, and I would be happy to volunteer to spearhead this project if everyone thinks this is a good idea. John Boyle and Randy Graczyk have both said that they have almost all of Bob's published and unpublished papers. The call for papers for KWPL has just gone out, and I will forward it separately to the Siouan list for your information.

Concerning the publishing of a festschrift honoring Bob, I've often thought, even when he was still alive, that it would be a good idea, but I was not willing to take on the task myself. I agree with Catherine that this could appropriately "serve as a venue for some of the papers from the abandoned Comparative Siouan syntax project." I, too, would like to set aside some time at the conference to discuss this. At least an hour seems appropriate.

Even though Bob stressed the necessity of everyone having an executor for academic purposes in their will, he apparently didn't follow his own advice. I've been in touch with Carolyn, Bob's wife, and will be having lunch with her on Thursday. I offered to help her sort through his papers, but she says that she is not only having to decide what to do with his papers, but also having to separate them from his ham radio materials, old medical bills, old c.d.'s and music tapes, and so forth. She's somewhat overwhelmed right now. She mentioned that she thought it might be a good idea to give his papers to the Smithsonian. I told her that many in our field donate their papers and recordings to the APS. Anyway, she asked me to put out the word to the Siouan list, who I said were discussing this very thing, that she would welcome the help of a knowledgeable linguist in organizing his papers. (She says there's also much of his written correspondence, of an academic nature, that could be useful to others if organized.) By the way, at the memorial in March, I invited Carolyn to attend the Siouan and Caddoan conference, especially considering the fact that she's from Wisconsin, where it's being held, and has family there, saying that we'd all be delighted to have her attend, but she said that, for now, she just wants to work at getting her life "back to normal." All in all, it sounds to me as though she's doing fairly well in that respect since she's gone back to work as a biologist at KU full-time.

Kathy Shea

Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 12, 2014, at 2:01 PM, David Kaufman <dvkanth2010 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 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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