What academic presses that you did not think required subventions, do in fact require them? My answer so far: Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures — which I never thought of as a kind of Peter Lang.
How far along the subvention road should we consider books to be “vanity” publications? Or should we stop being snooty about any press, given that it has become as hard as it has to place books and that under the circumstances, actually producing a coherent manuscript is already so much?
Instead of making Very Prestigious Publishing a gatekeeping enterprise, we could give extra credit to people who manage to place their manuscripts at the most competitive places.
Do you think? I used to be against that idea, watching people say (for self serving motives) that a mini-piece anywhere was as good as a mega-piece in a highly visible place, but now I wonder.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
And yes, I know this is MLK day, but I am letting everyone else write about it. I recommend this essay on slavery and freedom very, very highly. http://www.independentworldreport.com/2009/11/the-first-five-thousand-years-of-debt/
Cornell was one that surprised me.
Cornell, OMG. I am nonplussed.
I should be fair and say that I’m not sure *all* of their books require subventions, but I was reading the acknowledgments for one recently and there it was. Also to be fair, it was a good book. Still.
I’ll have to check on the Penn State situation — I heard something about subventions there too. It is just amazing.