Rate My Professor John Jackson

John L. Jackson, Jr., Ph.D., serves as Provost and Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Anthropology. He earned a B.A. in Communication (Radio/TV/Film) from Howard University in 1993 (summa cum laude), an M.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1994, an M.Phil. in 1998, and a Ph.D. in 2000 (with distinction). His career trajectory includes Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication (2019-2023), Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice (2014-2018), Senior Advisor to the Provost on Diversity (2012-2014), Associate Dean of Administration and Undergraduate Studies at Annenberg (2007-2014), Richard Perry University Associate Professor (2006-2009), and earlier positions as Associate Professor and Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University (1999-2006) and Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows (1997-1998).

Jackson specializes in urban ethnography, visual anthropology, critical race theory, media studies, and the ethnography of diasporic religions. He explores the use of film and multi-modal formats in scholarly research and co-founded CAMRA, the Center for Advanced Media Research in Anthropology at Penn. Key publications include Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (2005), Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness (Basic Civitas, 2008), Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Harvard University Press, 2013), Impolite Conversations: On Race, Politics, Sex, Money, and Religion (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2014, co-authored with Cora Daniels), and Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment (NYU Press, 2016, co-authored with Carolyn Rouse and Marla Frederick). He has produced ethnographic films such as Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens. Major awards encompass the American Anthropological Association Presidential Award (2008-2010), Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Award (2009), Lilly Endowment Fellowship at the National Humanities Center (2005-2006), and Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (1997-1998). Jackson is Editor-in-Chief of the Anthropology module for Oxford Bibliographies Online and co-editor of the RaceReligion series for Stanford University Press.