Arthur Ganz, an English professor at City College of New York for over 30 years who published several books and essays on playwrights, including George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen, died of pneumonia in New York City on Aug. 17. He was 95 and despite his brief illness had “remained remarkably himself until the last few days of his life,” wrote his partner of 30 years, Ruth Kaye.
He split his time between New York and East Hampton.
Mr. Ganz’s first book, published in 1960, was “Literary Terms: A Dictionary,” written with a colleague. He always remembered it fondly, Ms. Kaye wrote, and it “was the source of numbers of witticisms through the years.”
His area of specialization was drama. He published “George Bernard Shaw” in 1983 and wrote about other playwrights in “Realms of the Self: Variations on a Theme in Modern Drama,” which came out in 1980.
“If drama was his avocation, opera was his passion,” Ms. Kaye wrote. “He long had a subscription to the Metropolitan Opera and the Opera Guild. He eagerly awaited the publication of Opera News, which was his bedtime reading.”
When the Met started offering its Live in HD series, he was able to enjoy the opera in another way, “and the lockdown was made more than bearable by the Metropolitan Opera opening its archives and presenting a live-stream opera for free for viewing each night, which Arthur considered a remarkable act of generosity. Indeed, Arthur was interviewed one Labor Day on the beach by a reporter who asked when he considered the summer to be over. True to form, Arthur’s response was: ‘When the Metropolitan Opera starts its season.’ “
Mr. Ganz was born in Milwaukee on May 15, 1928, to Jack Ganz and the former Myrtle Rickman. He grew up there and earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1949 and a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1950 before serving in the military during the Korean War. He credited the G.I. Bill with enabling him to earn a Ph.D. at Columbia University, in 1957, Ms. Kaye said.
He was an assistant professor at Rutgers University from 1960 to 1965 and began teaching at CUNY in 1965, along the way serving as a visiting professor at Columbia in the early 1980s and at the University of Paris in 1983 and 1986. He was with CUNY until 1996.
While he was a transplant to New York, Mr. Ganz said he was more of a New Yorker than those who had been born there because he had chosen it. “If the city was his home, then East Hampton was his retreat,” Ms. Kaye wrote.
He and his wife, Margaret, who died in 1989, bought a house here in 1968. He had spent every extended summer in East Hampton since then, and during the long months of the Covid-19 lockdown lived here full time with Ms. Kaye.
Mr. Ganz enjoyed gardens, walks on the beach, “every fish and shellfish that came from the sea, and the general tenor of life in East Hampton,” she said.
In addition to Ms. Kaye, he is survived by her son, George Milberg of St. Anthony, Minn., and grandson, Isador Milberg. He also leaves a niece, Margery Ganz of Carlsbad, Calif., a nephew, Robert Ganz of Oceanside, Calif., two great-nieces and a great-nephew.
A private memorial service will be held in November. Memorial contributions have been suggested to Habitat for Humanity, online at habitat.org.
