Richard Weisberg from Cornell to Cardozo: A Memoir

I have now known Richard for over 50 years, since we first met as graduate students at Cornell University in 1965, in the residence known as Cascadilla Hall, “high above Cayuga’s waters” in Ithaca, New York. In those days, my strongest drink was the chocolate milk obtained in cartons from the basement machine, to help keep me awake to write course papers in the evenings. Richard was in “Comparative Literature” (French, German, and Russian literature) and I was in “Romance Studies” (essentially French literature, although I also studied Latin, history, philosophy, and eventually Romanian). I was also a teaching assistant in French language and then literature courses to help pay my way through graduate school. The following brief article may seem like a series of name-droppings, but it is true to say that Richard and I have been privileged to meet and discuss with some of the twentieth century’s foremost educators and writers, poets and philosophers, judges and lawyers. “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise” (Proverbs 13:20). Among the many professors we shared, several stand out and have left lasting impressions on us both. We remain in contact with Professor David Grossvogel, then a most strict, severe, and rigorous teacher of twentieth-century French literature. I recall that Professor Jean Parrish (since deceased), then department head and teaching a course on French eighteenth-century literature, did not really appreciate an idea that Richard and I had to present various colored versions of “fleurons” (printed floral motifs) which illustrated some books by Voltaire to differentiate publication dates. I remember the courses we attended given by the famous (or infamous) Paul de Man (1919–83) who stooped and walked back and forth in front of the class, lecturing quickly and alternatively in French, German, and English, according to the writer under consideration. Before I went to study in Paris in 1967 with the philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) at the Ecole Normale Sup erieure, I remember de Man remarking to me that studying with Derrida