Leonard Moss

Leonard Moss was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1931. He attended three state universities (Oklahoma, Indiana, and California), then taught American and European literature at a fourth (SUNY Binghamton and Geneseo). At Geneseo he directed a program in comparative literature until his retirement in 1989. He did not like to lecture: the best part of teaching, he always said, was swapping ideas with his students. He learned as much as they did from the lively give-and-take of guided discussions.

As a Fulbright professor he chaired the English Department at the University of Athens in 1976-77 and taught graduate students at the Foreign Studies University in Beijing in 1985-87 and 1993-94. The peak years of his career were spent in China, where he met and married, after overcoming bureaucratic nonsense, Shaoping Wu, a spirited English teacher. They co-authored a memoir recalling their courtship, travels, and adventures. They also co-authored a son, Eli, now an explorer in genetics.

Professor Moss edited the journal of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association in Providence from 1998 to 2004. During fifty years of research and writing he wrote books on Arthur Miller, Joseph Conrad, tragedy and philosophy, and Darwin and literature, completing these projects by the age of eighty-five. “Revision is the key to vision,” he would say. “I may not have the brainpower of a genius, but I am persistent.”

After retirement, he enjoyed reading and writing, swimming and walking, drawing, choral singing, and nurturing tomato and pepper plants. Above all, he delighted in his wife, a technology librarian at Mt. Holyoke College, and their talented son. The three were good companions and enjoyed vacationing at Cape Cod before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area. The sea, sun, and sand, he believed, were more therapeutic than any doctor.

Leonard Moss passed away on May 28, 2020 at the age of 88. His grateful conclusion after a long, rewarding, sometimes arduous journey through life—“mission accomplished.” On that subject, he liked a poem by Emily Dickinson, his favorite poet:

I stepped from plank to plank

A slow and cautious way,

The stars about my head I felt,

About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch—

This gave me that precarious gait

Some call experience.

His articles and books can be downloaded or viewed at the Moss Family Publications website: http://mossfamily publications.weebly.com/