Samantha Baskind joined the faculty at Cleveland State University in August 2004, having previously taught taught at the University of Miami (where she held a joint appointment in art history and Judaic studies), James Madison University, and the University of Pittsburgh.
Her research focuses on twentieth-century American art and culture and the role of the Jewish American artist in the modern world. Presentations on these subjects have been made at the annual conferences of the College Art Association, Association for Jewish Studies, American Culture Association, Southeastern College Art Association, World Congress of Jewish Studies (in Israel), American Academy of Religion, and Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies. She has also lectured widely at universities, museums, and congregations throughout the United States and abroad, including Stanford University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Oxford University (England), University of Graz (Austria), SWPS Uniwersytet Humanistycznospoleczny (Poland), and Bar Ilan University (Israel), among many others.
Her book, Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (2004), was funded by grants from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and American Council of Learned Societies, the Jewish Historical Society of New York, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, in addition to receiving a Koret Jewish Studies Publications Program award. She is sole author of Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists (2007), a 2006-7 College and Research Libraries selected reference work. A co-edited volume with Ranen Omer-Sherman, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches, came out in 2008. Jewish Art: A Modern History, coauthored with Larry Silver was published in 2011. Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America (2014) considers the proliferation of biblical themes by Jewish painters, printmakers, sculptors, and book illustrators. This book has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Her most recently published book, The Warsaw Ghetto in American Art and Culture (2018), examines the ghetto’s diverse meanings in American culture by paying close attention to how its story has been told, retold, and remembered in fine art, book illustrations, film, television, radio, theater, fiction, poetry, and comics. Recent articles have appeared in American Art, History of Photography, Winterthur Portfolio, and Jewish Social Studies, among other venues. Baskind served as editor for U.S. art for the 26-volume revised edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica (2006) and is also the editor of Pennsylvania State University Press’s book series: “Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination.” Her current book project , about the once prominent but now largely forgotten 19th-century sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, seeks to reconstruct his body of work, explore the influence of his Jewish identity on his art, and more broadly, to investigate the country’s effort to memorialize the Confederacy, through art, in the years after the Civil War. This project has been funded by the Southern Jewish Historical Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Honors and Awards:
-Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2020-21)
-Research grant, Southern Jewish Historical Society (Fall 2019)
-Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible and Archie Rand: The Book of Judith, combined shows, featured by the Forward as one of the top Jewish cultural moments of 2016, throughout the United States:
http://forward.com/series/best-of/2016/archie-rands-biblical-art/
-Distinguished Faculty Award for Research, Cleveland State University (2014)
-Fellowship, 2013 Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for University Faculty, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington, D.C. (Summer 2013)
-Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin (Spring 2013)
-Fellowship, Seventeenth Annual Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, Holocaust Educational Foundation, Northwestern University (Summer 2012)
-Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2009-10)
-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention, Jewish Art: A Modern History (April 2010)
-Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Grant (2008)
-Cleveland State University Faculty Research Development Award (2007-9)
-Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists, a College and Research Libraries Selected Reference Work, 2006-7 (September 2007)
-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (September 2007)
-Fellowship, Society for the Preservation of American Modernists (Summer 2005)
-Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture fellowship (Summer 2004)
-Koret Jewish Studies Publications Program Award for Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (July 2003)
-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention for color plates, Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (December 2002)
Creative and Activities: SERIES EDITOR:
Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination. Pennsylvania State University Press (2012-present)
https://www.psupress.org/books/series/book_SeriesDimyonot.html
-Vol. 1: David Stern, Christoph Markschies, and Sarit Shalev-Eyni, eds., The Monk’s Haggadah (2015)
-Vol. 2: Ranen Omer-Sherman, Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature and Film (2015)
-Vol. 3: Jordan D. Finkin, An Inch or Two of Time: Time and Space in Jewish Modernisms (2015)
-Vol. 4: Ilan Stavans and Marcelo Brodsky, Once @ 9:53am (2016)
-Vol. 5: Ben Schachter, Image, Action and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art (2017)
-Vol. 6: Mark Podwal, Hebrew Melodies (2019)
-Vol. 7: Irene Eber, Judaism and China (2019)
-Vol. 8: Jonathan K. Crane, ed., Judaism, Race, and Ethics: Conversations and Questions (2020)
-Vol. 9: Yael Halevi-Wise, The Multilayered Imagination of A.B. Yehoshua (2020)
-Vol. 10: Laura Levitt, The Objects That Remain: Holocaust Evidence and Criminal Archives (2020)
-Vol. 11: Lawrence Fine, ed., Friendship in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (2021)
-Vol. 12: David S. Herrstrom and Andrew D. Scrimgeour, The Prophetic Quest: The Windows of Jacob Landau (2021)
-Vol. 13: Hasan Sarbakhsian, Parveneh Vahidmanesh, and Lior B. Sternfeld, Iran, Iranian Jews, and Israel (2022)
-Vol. 14: Alan Mintz, American Hebraist: Essays on Agnon and Modern Jewish Literature, edited by Beverly Bailis and David Stern (forthcoming fall 2022)
-Vol. 15: J.H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree (forthcoming fall 2022)
EXHIBITIONS CURATED AND ACCOMPANYING CATALOGUES:
Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible. Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Galleries at CSU, 2016.
Exhibition venues:
-Skirball Museum, Cincinnati, OH: February 18-June 28, 2020 (extended to January 31, 2021 due to COVID-19)
-American Jewish Museum, Pittsburgh, PA: January 9-March 31, 2017
-Galleries at CSU, Cleveland, OH: September 1-October 8, 2016
Archie Rand: The Book of Judith. Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Galleries at CSU, 2016.
Exhibition venue:
-Galleries at CSU, Cleveland, OH: September 1-October 8, 2016
Professional Affiliations:-Association of Historians of American Art
-Association for Jewish Studies
-College Art Association
-Southern Jewish Historical Society
Professional Service:
-Editorial board, AmericanJewishStudies.org (2020-present)
-Editorial board, Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Jewish Women¿s Archive (2018-present)
-Art Advisor, Audrey Flack estate, New York, NY (2018-present)
-Mentor, Association for Jewish Studies program for junior scholars (2017-present)
-Advisory Group, Yiddish Book Center Teacher Resources program (2017-present)
-Advisory Board, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (2016-present)
-Advisory Board, Jewish Art Salon (2016-present)
-Distinguished Lectureship Program, Association for Jewish Studies (2016-present)
-Advisory Network, Initiative for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, Yale University (2011-present)
-Editorial Board, AJS Perspectives (2017-present)
-Conference committee, American Jewish Historical Society Biennial Conference, New York Center for Jewish History (2019-20)
-Advisor, Cleveland Arts Prize, Past Masters Celebration Visual Arts Prize (2020 competition cycle)
-Application evaluator, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowships (2019-20 cycle, 2018-19 cycle)
-Application evaluator, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Awards (Fall 2018)
-Juror, Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards, category of ¿Jews and the Arts: Visual, Performance, and Music¿ (Summer 2018)
-Advisor, Audrey Flack: Queen of Hearts, documentary directed by Deborah Shaffer (2016-19)
Trailer: https://www.audreyflackfilm.com
-Art consultant, My Dear Children, documentary (2018). Cliff Hackel and LeAnn Dance, Co-producers/directors
Trailer: http://www.mydearchildrendoc.com
-Art Advisor, Ben-Zion estate, New York, NY (2017-18)
-Division Chair for Jews, Film, and the Arts, Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference (2014-2017)
-Academic Council, American Jewish Historical Society (2011-14)
-Advisor, New Media in Jewish Studies Collaborative Project, Columbia University (2012-14)
-Application evaluator, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Washington, D.C. (Summer 2012)
-Grant evaluation for Israel Science Foundation, Art History section (Spring 2012)
-Editorial Board, Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry (2006-2010)
-Editor for U.S. art, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 26 volumes (2004-2006)
