Avrom Fleishman

CAPE ELIZABETH – Avrom Fleishman, a professor of English at Johns Hopkins University for over 30 years, died in Cape Elizabeth on Feb. 9, 2025. He was a widely published scholar of English literature, film theory, and cultural criticism. His books include critical studies of Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and George Eliot’s Intellectual Life (2010).

Born in New York on July 27, 1933, the only child of Louis and Sarah Fleishman, he attended Columbia College where he was class salutatorian in 1954, subsequently gaining postgraduate degrees, “with distinction”, at Johns Hopkins in 1956 and 1963. After rising through the ranks at several universities, he returned to Johns Hopkins in 1968 and served his subsequent career there, retiring in 2000. Fleishman was the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.

He was also an amateur poet, self-publishing three slim volumes of poems and a novel after his retirement. Avrom spent the past four years enjoying Portland with his new community of friends at 75 State Street.

Widower of Sophia (Abraham), his wife and friend of 48 years; he leaves behind sons Franz of Towson and Ilya of Cape Elizabeth; and grandchild, Saskia.