Dr. Salah M. Hassan is founding Director of The Africa Institute. Hassan concurrently holds positions at Cornell University as the Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in African and African Diaspora Art History and Visual Culture in the Department of Africana Studies and Research Center; in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies; and as Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM). Hassan also served as Professor of History of Art in African and African American Studies and Fine Art at Brandeis University, where he was previously awarded the Madeleine Haas Russell Professorship in the Departments of African and Afro-American Studies and Fine Art.

Hassan is an editor and co-founder of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and author, editor, and contributor to numerous other books, journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues. Hassan has also curated international exhibitions and Biennials including Authentic/Ex- Centric (49th Venice Biennale, 2001); and 3x3: Three Artists/Three: David Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z (Dak'Art, 2004); among others.

He and Zuckerman discussed African Modernism, family preferences, not seeing yourself, resistance, walking, revenge, and loving beauty and humor in art!