鈥淲hat doesn鈥檛 count as scholarship?鈥� asked in 精东影业鈥檚 2021 Sachs Lecture. The answer, said Jackson, Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, bears on 鈥渉ow we bring truth and fact to bear on arguments we make about the world.鈥�
Jackson aspired to a Hollywood career but became an anthropologist to honor 鈥渢he power of images and sound鈥� by making ethnographic films. The academy fought him, signaling that movies 鈥渨eren鈥檛 going to count at promotion as much as a book or an article.鈥�
Watch the 2021 Sachs Lecture, delivered by John L. Jackson, Jr.
That unwritten rule, he said, stems from the anthropologist Clifford Geertz鈥檚 鈥渃anonization鈥� of 鈥溾�榯hin description鈥� 鈥� the inadequacy of merely looking at the physical world鈥� because 鈥測ou need the anthropological guide to walk you through鈥hat you鈥檙e only seeing.鈥�
I鈥檇 argue that part of what makes the moving image so difficult and dangerous to comprehend is it鈥檚 thickness, not it鈥檚 thinness.
鈥擳C Sachs Lecturer John L. Jackson, Jr.
But 鈥淚鈥檇 argue that part of what makes the moving image so difficult and dangerous to comprehend is it鈥檚 thickness, not it鈥檚 thinness,鈥� said Jackson, whose own films include 鈥淏ad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens,鈥� a documentary on the 1963 violence in a Western Jamaican Rasta community, and who created a student 鈥渂ootcamp鈥� to 鈥渞outinize what it would mean to pick up and turn on and mobilize a camera.鈥�
John L. Jackson, Jr., Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Anthropology 鈥� and academia in general 鈥� will surely have a 鈥渕ulti-modal future,鈥� Jackson concluded. But 鈥渢he question becomes, Do we enter kicking and screaming? Or, do we enter with a game plan to prepare students in education, anthropology, sociology and communication with the tools they need, the skills and sensibilities to bring to bear on a multimodal world?鈥�
The Sachs Lecture, sponsored by TC鈥檚 Office of the Provost, was established in 1924 by Julius Sachs, a TC faculty member who founded New York City鈥檚 Dwight School.