Samantha Baskind
Distinguished Professor of Art History
Cleveland State University

Samantha Baskind is Distinguished Professor of Art History at Cleveland State University. She is the author of five books and co-editor of The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2008), the foundational volume in the field. Additional publications include over 100 articles and reviews, mainly on Jewish American art. An active public scholar, her articles in the mainstream press have appeared in TIME, Smithsonian Magazine, Hyperallergic, Tablet, and the Washington Post, among others. She served as editor for U.S. art for the 22-volume revised edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, art editor for AJS Perspectives, and is currently series editor of Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination, published by the Pennsylvania State University Press. Baskind has curated exhibitions for the Skirball Museum in Cincinnati, American Jewish Museum in Pittsburgh, Bernard Heller Museum in New York City, and the Jerusalem Biennale. Her work has been funded by many sources, including the American Council of Learned Societies, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and two year-long fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her newest book, Moses Jacob Ezekiel: Jewish, Confederate, Expatriate Sculptor, will be published by the Pennsylvania State University Press in 2025.

Selected Publications

The Warsaw Ghetto in American Art and Culture (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018)

Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014)

Jewish Art: A Modern History, coauthored with Larry Silver (Reaktion Books, 2011)

The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches, coedited with Ranen Omer-Sherman (Rutgers University Press, 2008)

Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists (Greenwood Press, 2007) – a College and Research Libraries Selected Reference Work

Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (University of North Carolina Press, 2004)