James Woods grew up in Katy, Tex. He graduated from Harvard College and the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. He was an assistant professor of communications at Staten Island and at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan.

James Woods was an author and assistant professor at the City University of New York. He died at New York Hospital. He was 32 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was complications from AIDS, according to the College of Staten Island, where he taught. Mr. Woods is survived by his companion, Paul D. Young.

With Jay H. Lucas, Mr. Woods wrote The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America (1993).