Mr. Rauschenberg, the acclaimed Pop artist, was barely known in 1952 when he painted swirling arrows to illustrate "The Dancer," a poem by Joel Oppenheimer, published by Jargon.
Others move past an exclusive reliance on academic publishing and highly technical jargon, seeking to engage the public in philosophical inquiry via more accessible forms of writing, such as open-access blogs, op-eds, and public-facing books (Hill Collins, 2009; Corvino, 2013; Cherry, 2014, 2016).
"If Jargon had published it," he told The New York Times in 1976, "it would have sold 300 copies".
Mr. Williams was himself a poet, essayist, photographer and graphic artist — talents he brought to the meticulously refined design of the approximately 100 books of avant-garde poetry and fiction, folk art and photography that Jargon has published since 1952.
Then, last May, he published a simple, jargon-free, eight-page article in the HBR, called "IT doesn't matter".
Academic presses still publish lousy, abstruse, jargon-heavy books; and Allen Lane, Bodley Head, 4th Estate, Picador, Bloomsbury, Profile, Atlantic, Granta and Little, Brown continue to publish great ones, in history, nature, biography – all subjects.
In defending the piece, an NBC News source said, "NBC waited until there was a full lid from the White House before publishing the piece," referring to jargon indicating that the day's news from the White House is done.
Most of Porter's evidence is culled from sources like the National Bureau of Economic Research and The Journal of Economic Perspectives — outlets that routinely publish fascinating research cloaked in jargon.
Wired magazine regularly publishes a glossary of emerging computer jargon, for example.
Under Williams' tenure The Jargon Society was known for publishing American avant-garde poetry, fiction, and photography from lesser known authors.
