Department of Anthropology university of pennsylvania

John L. Jackson, Jr.

Richard Perry University Professor of Communication and Anthropology, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Annenberg School for Communication
Phone: 
215 746 0440
Education: 
Ph.D. Columbia University, 2000
Research Interests: 
Ethnographic Film and Visual Studies; Race Theory and Identity; Globalization, Transnationalism, and Diaspora; Religion, Media, and Modernity; Social Theory; Urban Studies and Class Formation; The Politics and Poetics of Ethnography; Cultural Studies and Performance Theory; Africana Studies and Popular Culture; U.S, Israel.
Appointments: 
Anthropology Department Faculty; Annenberg School for Communication Faculty; Africana Studies.
Publications: 

BOOKS:

Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America (University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness (Basic Civitas, 2008).

All Yah's Children: African American Israelites in the Promised Land (under contract, Harvard University Press).

 

RECENT ARTICLES:

“Democracy’s Anxious Returns,” co-authored with David Kim, The ANNALS of the Academy of Political and Social Science, forthcoming September 2011.

“HBO’s Utopian Realism: Treating Treme,” Transforming Anthropology, (19)1: 17-20, April 2011.

“On Ethnographic Sincerity,” Current Anthropology, 51(S): 279-289, October 2010.

“The Decolonization of Black Film: An Interview with Filmmaker Haile Gerima,” CALLALOO: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, 33(1): 25-36, Winter 2010.

“All Yah’s Children: Emigrationism, Afrocentrism, and the Place of Israel in Africa,” Civilisations, published by Université libre de Bruxelles in English and French, 63(1): 93-112, September 2009.

 

FILMS:

Co-Producer, -Director, Editor, Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens (68-minute non-fiction film, forthcoming).

 

Producer, Reading Darkness: African-Americans and the Bible (Non-Fiction) COMPLETED IN 2006.

 

Producer, Divided We Stand, a 90-minute, 16mm Film (Fiction) COMPLETED.

• Eastman Kodak Pre-Production Award, 1996

• Second Best Feature: Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Festival, Oakland, 1998

• Official Selection: The 7th Annual Pan-African Film Festival, Los Angeles, 1999

• Third Prize, Best Feature: The Hollywood Black Film Festival, Los Angeles, 1999

 

Producer, The Sight, a 15-minute, 16mm Film (Fiction) COMPLETED

• Official Selection: Martha’s Flava Fest Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard, 1998

 

Producer, Stompin’ Down at Suga Love’s, a 20-minute, 16mm Film (Fiction) COMPLETED

• Official Selection: Rotterdam International Film Festival (Amsterdam), February 2000

• Official Selection: Raindance Film Festival (London), October 2000

 

Co-Writer, -Producer, -Director, Get it Together, a 30-minute video (Non-Fiction) COMPLETED

• Audience’s Choice Award, Black Producers’ Consortium, 1993

• Silver Apple Award, National Education Film and Video Festival, 1993

• Best Student Documentary, North American Association of Environmental Educators, 1993