We have received sad news about our alumnus Herbie Lindenberger.
Herbert G. Lindenberger, Ph.D. 1955, died in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2018. Among the first and most distinguished alumni of our department, Herbie (as he was known to everyone) taught at the University of California, Riverside, at Washington University in St. Louis, and from 1969 until his retirement in 2001 at Stanford University. He chaired comparative literature programs at all three institutions, for 14 years in all. He wrote 10 scholarly books (the most recent, co-authored, was published in 2016), a hypertext memoir, and a sensitive history of the multiple, diverse fates of his Jewish relatives in the Holocaust. Plus, of course, countless articles. Among his many honors, he served as President of the Modern Language Association, and in 2006 he was named the UW Distinguished Alumnus in the Humanities. A universally beloved enthusiast for all things cultural, from early Europe to the day after tomorrow, his greatest passion outside of literature, his family, and his profession, was opera, about which he wrote two books; his perfect recall of decades of opera performances was the wonder of his friends. There are few scholars in any era who combine his vast knowledge, his unfailing tolerance and generosity, and his equal enthusiasm for the past and the future, for old and new ways of encountering the world. If humanity characterizes the humanities, Herbie was the ideal embodiment. We are proud and honored to count him among our numbers.