“At a Distance of Years: The Novel of Aging in the Shadow of Auschwitz”
Professional Background
Mr. Anthony Wexler is a PhD candidate in English at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a BA from Yeshiva University in English and Jewish studies and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in English. He is fluent in French and Hebrew and can read Aramaic. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Mr. Wexler completed his dissertation, “At a Distance of Years: The Novel of Aging in the Shadow of Auschwitz.”
Recent lectures and presentations include: “The End of an Era: Holocaust Memory in Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost,” at the American Literature Association; “The End of Holocaust Memory in Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein,” at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association; “Losing the Holocaust: Philip Roth and Primo Levi Grow Old,” at Johns Hopkins University; “At a Distance of Years: Primo Levi and the Problem of Holocaust Preservation,” at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference (ACLA), University of Toronto; and “J.M. Coetzee’s Palliative Novels and the Holocaust,” at the ACLA, Brown University.
Fellowship Research
For his Alexander Grass Memorial Fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Mr. Wexler conducted research for his project, “At a Distance of Years: The Novel of Aging in the Shadow of Auschwitz,” which examines the connections between the aging process, the memory of trauma, and the aging legacy of the Holocaust in a number of contemporary Vollendungsromans, or novels of late life.
Mr. Wexler was in residence at the Mandel Center from July 1 to December 31, 2014.