A large U.S. university press has stopped selling two scholarly books about the philosophers Slavoj Žižek and John Venn due to problems with how the authors cited – or didn’t cite – source material.
In both cases, the University of Chicago Press stated on its website that the titles, released in 2023 and 2022, respectively, were “no longer available for sale.” But only “John Venn: A Life in Logic” by Lukas M. Verburgt was “retracted,” according to the publisher.
The author of the other publication – “How Slavoj Became Žižek: The Digital Making of a Public Intellectual” – told us he had been afforded a chance to fix his mistakes. These included “several insufficient, missing, or erroneous citations of source material upon which the author builds his argument,” the University of Chicago Press stated.
“The publisher has given me the opportunity to correct the book and resubmit it for review,” said Eliran Bar-El, a sociologist at the University of York, in England. “In light of it being an ongoing process, I cannot provide further details until there is a review outcome, which will be reflected appropriately in my publication list. At this time, I would like to genuinely thank the observant readers who have brought this to my attention.”
Verburgt, whose work contains “numerous instances of insufficiently cited source material,” does not appear to have been quite as lucky.
“I regret the fact that it has not been possible to revise and rectify,” Verburgt, a research and project associate at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, in Amsterdam, wrote on his website. “This has saddened me deeply, also since the consequences have taken a serious toll on me, in different ways.”
The University of Chicago Press declined to comment on the two cases.
On his website, Verburgt said he accepted the decision to pull his book. He explained that he made use “of a 2007 dissertation in several of the biographical chapters” and had not been “as careful as I should have been in ensuring accurate referencing at all places. I’m very sorry about this, especially to the author of the dissertation.”
He did not identify the dissertation in question. But in his book, he acknowledged his debt to the authors of two PhD dissertations, only one of which – “Intersecting Sets: John Venn, Church and University, 1834-1923” by Michelle Clewlow – was published in 2007.
Clewlow declined to comment. Her former supervisor at the Open University, John Wolffe, told us:
I was not previously aware of this matter, but naturally concerned to learn about it as The Open University does take plagiarism very seriously. However, Dr Clewlow tells me that she does not want to comment herself, and especially as I have not seen the book, I will follow her lead and not offer further comment.
Verburgt, who did not respond to our requests for comment, wrote on his website:
In the process of repeatedly revising the manuscript – over the course of a period of many years – several things have gone amiss.
The crucial final stages came at a time of great personal turmoil for me and my family. On another level, I’ve always been explicit and open about the importance of the dissertation for the book. I’ve hid neither my debt to the dissertation itself nor its significance for the biographical chapters, which sometimes went beyond my immediate expertise: I’ve referred to it multiple times and also mentioned it explicitly in the acknowledgments. This does not justify the lack of accurate referencing. What it does show is that this inaccuracy has, of course, not been deliberate. I’ve been negligent, but never had malign intentions.
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I dunno if there’s a “right way” to respond to things like this, but …
“The publisher has given me the opportunity to correct the book and resubmit it for review,” said Eliran Bar-El, a sociologist at the University of York, in England. “In light of it being an ongoing process, I cannot provide further details until there is a review outcome, which will be reflected appropriately in my publication list. At this time, I would like to genuinely thank the observant readers who have brought this to my attention.”
… does seem a pretty decent way to do it.
Hi AGE.
I don’t follow your comment. Are you stating approval of the quotation from Bar-El?
Because I am having difficulty understanding his comment. Why cannot one discuss the sources used in a book one is trying to publish with a University Press? Why would not be possible (“I cannot”)? It seems to me that this is exactly what should be immediately done– provide the relevant details that “fix the mistakes” of the “several insufficient, missing, or erroneous citations of source material upon which the author builds his argument”. I have never heard of an author of a philosophy book saying that they could not discuss the details of an argument or the scholarship used pending a review process by a potential publisher. Perhaps that is normal in the author’s field of sociology? It is unheard of in Philosophy and a couple of other fields with which I have some publishing experience. So if you could clarify this point for me, then I could better understand, I hope, what is the point of your posting an empty message of approval for a statement quoted in full in the article. Sincerely.
Hi,
No, not approval per se. What I meant, though perhaps indeed did not state with sufficient clarity, was that the response gives a more “honest” impression, than the more traditional *no comment*, of which there are so many reported on this website (Author “did not reply to request”, etc.).
Say you had been accused of plagiarism. You have two possible replies:
1. State that you are thankful to the publisher for being given the chance to correct the error, and to the (let’s call them) whistleblowers for pointing out your mistake
2. Say nothing, do not respond to requests for comment.
Of course, the allegation is serious either way – but (1) gives more of an *impression* of honesty, no? That’s what I was thinking, at least. That is, *this* was a “decent way” to respond to these allegations. I don’t think that amounts to approval of the contents (which are of no consequence to me anyway, as I am not a sociologist or philosopher).
As an aside – you don’t see the point in posting an “empty message of approval”? Is this your first time visiting an online comment section…? 😉
All the best.
Thanks AGE.
There is a third option you didn’t mention: State that you are thankful for being given the chance to correct the error and then explain the “several insufficient, missing, or erroneous citations of source material upon which the author builds his argument”. Name the authors and books and articles that you did not adequately cite, apologize to them, call attention to the importance of their work, etc. Instead we have here the bizarre comment: “In light of it being an ongoing process, I cannot provide further details until there is a review outcome”. But as I said, that makes no sense. There is absolutely no reason that an author cannot discuss arguments, sources, etc. while something is under review. People like you without publishing experience in sociology or philosophy might get the impression from that statement that there really is a norm or convention or rule or something that prevents him from apologizing to the wronged authors and setting the record straight. But I’m here to tell you that in fact this is unheard of, and his statement makes no sense.
And on the aside, while this isn’t my first time visiting an online comment section, I do not do it very often, and this is one of my first times posting to one. Is it considered rude to query commentators who post empty messages of approval? If so, I’m sorry.
Haha, no, not rude.
I just meant that “empty approval” is most of the social media. Meant nothing by it. What you’re saying makes sense!
I’m currently writing a systematic review. While wading through the literature, I keep meticulously track of the articles and books I read on zotero. I collect the quotations as annotations and notes also in zotero, to copy it out later, with the correct citation automatically added. While keeping a protocol of the things I did. It’s called “reproducible research” and it’s a great help against any plagiarism accusations.
For my statistical analysis article, which is currently on hold, I do something similar. It’s all contained in one RMarkdown document, which will be published together with the article. So anyone interested can run the code by themselves. That way no-one can accuse me of plagiarism or forgery.
It would help science a lot, if we would require scholars to provide a protocol, the version history of their documents and the raw data.
How do academic libraries manage book retractions? I just found both these books in my university’s library, one of them accessible online. No notification of the retractions was appended to them. Does the publisher notify the libraries directly?