Kobena Mercer, formerly Visiting Professor at New York University and a Fellow at Cornell University, is the author of landmark texts in visual culture and has an international research profile in cultural studies.

His first book, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies (1994) has been followed by monographs on contemporary artists, including Keith Piper (1997) and Isaac Julien (2002) and contributions to exhibition catalogues including Pictura Britannica (Sydney, 1997), Africas: The Artist and the City (Barcelona, 2001) and Looking Both Ways: Artists of the Contemporary African Diaspora (New York, 2003).

His research interests in issues of cultural identity, sexuality and representation inform recent articles contributed to frieze, Artforum International and Camera Austria and he is currently editing a collection of new art historical perspectives on Cosmopolitan Modernisms to be published by the Institute of International Visual Arts in 2005.