Prof's book published posthumously

Always renowned as a man of incredible energy and diverse interests, former Linguistics Professor Zellig Harris -- who died in 1992 -- had his last of many books published this month. "Anyone who knew Harris would recognize his style -- his approach," said Linguistics Professor Emeritus Henry Hoenigswald, who was a 40-year colleague of Harris'. "He did unexpected things -- he was very much alive [and] awake." Harris' penchant for doing the unexpected is evident in his newest work, The Transformation of Capitalist Society, soon to be available at The Book Store. Harris, who retired in 1985, is best-known as the founder of the University's Linguistics Department -- "the first of its kind in the U.S.," according to Management and Sociology Emeritus Professor William Evan. But his recently published book focuses on the strikingly different field of economics. "This is the first and only book he wrote on a nonlinguistic subject," noted Evan, a former student and colleague of Harris' who helped organize and publish the book. Evan explained that Harris showed him a draft of the book about a month before he died. After Harris' death, Evan collaborated with two "old friends" to prepare the book for publishing. In The Transformation of Capitalist Society, Harris examines and advocates increasing tendencies toward economic democracy and production that is "self-governed," as in the form of employee-ownership programs. Evan first became acquainted with Harris -- who also served as the president of the Linguistics Society of America -- as an undergraduate Linguistics major in the 1940s. "He was a stellar Linguistics professor," Evan recalled. "We developed a friendship over the years and that's why I was interested in developing the manuscript." Hoenigswald also noted that Harris' 244-page "political essay" is very distinct from his earlier linguistic works. "Harris was one of the most important thinkers in our field -- the center of his being was that of a thinker," Hoenigswald said. "But aside from his central track in life he found time for other things." Hoenigswald added that the book -- which he described as "very well-written" -- shows Harris' "politically active" side. He explained that even for less scholarly readers, the book provides interesting insights. Along with economics, the Benjamin Franklin Professor also relished studying anthropology and sociology, according to Evan. "There's no direct relation between linguistics and economics, [but] he had a deep knowledge of various social sciences," Evan noted. "He was a polymath -- which is a fancy word for someone with a profound knowledge of different fields."