James Saslow

Professor of Renaissance Art and Theater

Professor James Saslow's teaching interests focus on the Italian Renaissance and Baroque period, with special interests in gender and sexuality in art and the visual aspects of the theatre (he also teaches in the CUNY doctoral programs in Theatre and Renaissance Studies).

He has taught topics in the period 1300-1750 such as mythology and art, sexuality and gender, the city of Florence, Michelangelo, and the classical tradition in architecture. A founding member of CUNY's Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), and of the College Art Association's Queer Caucus for Art, he has written about both historical and contemporary arts addressed to homosexual and lesbian experience, and organized the 2004 conference at the Graduate Center on "InterseXions: Queer Visual Culture at the Crossroads."

His approach involves iconography, social history, and links between art and literature, which led him to translate the often homoerotic poetry of Michelangelo. He is currently working on a study of the outspokenly homosexual 16th-century artist Giovanni Bazzi (Il Sodoma), and a memoir of gay and lesbian culture. He is a board member of New York's Leslie-Lohman Museum of Lesbian and Gay Art, the nation's first officially chartered museum dedicated to LGBTQ art and artists.

Books:

• A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art. Co-edited with Babette Bohn. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
• Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1999, pb. 2001. Award, Lambda Literary Foundation.
• Scholars, Explorers and Priests: How the Renaissance Gave Us the Modern World.Curator/Editor, exh.cat., New York: Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College.
• 2010. My Wonderful Adventure: The Art and Life of Stanley Marc Wright, 1911-1996. Stowe, VT: Wright Estate, 1999.
• The Medici Wedding of 1589: Florentine Festival as "theatrum mundi." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Phyllis Gordan Prize, Renaissance Society of America.
• Editor. Bibliography of Gay and Lesbian Art. New York: Gay and Lesbian Caucus, CAA, 1994. Wittenborn Book Award, Special Mention, ARLIS.
• Goddess, Worker, Mother, Symbol: Images of Women in World Art. Exh. Cat. New York: Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queen's College, 1994.
• The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
• ​​​​​​​Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986; also Madrid: Nerea, 1990.