John L. Jackson, Jr., is Walter H. Annenburg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Jackson received his BA in Communication (Radio/TV/Film) summa cum laude from Howard University (1993), earned his PhD in Anthropology with distinction from Columbia University (2000), and served as a junior fellow at the Harvard University Society of Fellows (1999-2002). He is the author of 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); Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Harvard University Press, 2013); Impolite Conversations: On Race, Politics, Sex, Money, and Religion, co-written with Cora Daniels (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2014), and Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment (NYU Press, 2016), co-written with Carolyn Rouse and Marla Frederick. His is also editor of Social Policy and Social Justice (2016), distributed by the University of Pennsylvania Press. His most recently completed film, co-directed with Deborah A. Thomas, is Bad Friday: Rastafari after Coral Gardens (Third World Newsreel, 2012). Jackson previously served as Senior Advisor to the Provost on Diversity and Associate Dean of Administration in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.