CSU professor Samantha Baskind selected as humanities research fellow        

Samantha Baskind, a Cleveland State University professor of art history in modern Jewish art and culture, was selected as a 2020 research fellow by the National Endowment for Humanities.

The fellowship is one of the highest awards humanities scholars can receive, and it provides funds for scholars to take on a year’s studies on culturally and artistically significant areas, according to a news release.

This is Baskind’s second yearlong NEH research fellowship. She is the only CSU faculty to receive the award twice.

Baskind’s research will consist of assessing Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a 19th-century Jewish sculptor known for his creations, the 25-foot-tall “Religious Liberty” in Philadelphia and the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., with the first book-length recording.

Baskind’s focus examines how American Jewish artists’ pieces have been impacted by their dual identities, and through Ezekiel, she plans to recreate his art, look for any Jewish identity depicted and research America’s attempt to memorialize the Confederacy through art following the Civil War. She will also see the impact his creations had on the modern world, especially in today’s controversial efforts to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces.