Phyllis J. Jackson

Associate Professor of Art History
With Pomona Since: 1993
  • Expertise

    Research Interests

    • The arts, cinemas, aesthetics, and discursive strategies of Africa and the African Diaspora in the United States, the Caribbean, and Western Europe 
    • Presently working on books titled Bodies of Representation: Art and Aesthetics of Women of African Descent and Black Panther Party Art and Aesthetics

    Areas of Expertise

    AFRICANA STUDIES

    • Black women artists and filmmakers\African arts and cinema
    • Black feminist theory (BFT)
    • Intersectionality—race, gender, sexuality, and class in visual culture
    • Women and the visual arts
    • Critical race theory (CRT)
    • Critical race feminism (CRF)
    • Black Panther Party art and aesthetics.
  • Work

    Work

    "Liberating Blackness and Interrogating Whiteness," in Art, Women, California,1950-2000: Parallels and Intersections (D. B. Fuller and D. Salvioni, eds., University of California Press, 59-77, 2002).

    “(Re)living Memories: Picturing Death,” Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World , Vol. 5, 2002.

    "Outing Whiteness: Interrogating Representations of Race and Racism," for Annals of Scholarship: Art Practices and the Human Sciences in a Global Culture, 14, Spring 2000, guest co-editor with Darrell Moore. “The Visual and Applied Arts,” African American Almanac, chapter 26, 9th edition, Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1999.

    "(in)FORMING the Visual: (re)PRESENTING Women of African Descent," The International Review of African American Art, 14, 30-37, 1998.

    Selected Recordings

    PODCAST: "Visual Culture, Race, and Globalization:Is Feminism Still Relevant?": Panel discussion for the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2007.

    Selected Films

    Comrade Sister: Voices of Women in the Black Panther Party, co-producer and co-director with Christine L. Minor.

    Selected Exhibits

    (in)FORMING the Visual: (re)PRESENTING Women of African Descent, Guest Curator for the Pomona College Museum of Art, 1995.

    Selected Conferences and Film Festivals

    For Life! For Liberation: Revisiting Black Aesthetics in the Hip Hop Age–faculty/student collaboration, 2004.

    2 HOT 4 PBS: Women in the Director’s Chair 9th Annual Touring Film and Video Festival, Committee Chair for an Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Program Film Festival, January 1999;

    Cinemas of Resistance/Cine de Resistencia, Fall 1999.

    Outing Whiteness: Interrogating Re-Presentations of Race and Racism, Intercollegiate Department of Black Studies annual conference, February 1998.

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D.
    Northwestern University

    Master of Arts
    Northwestern University

    Bachelor of Arts
    Reed College

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Africana Cinema: Through the Documentary Lens
    • Black Aesthetics and the Politics of (Re)presentation
    • Cinema Against War, Imperialism, and Corporate Power
    • Critical Race Theory, Representation, and The Rule of Law
    • Daughters Africa: Art, Cinema, Theory, LOVE
    • Whiteness: Race, Sex and Representation
    • Black Women, Feminisms, & Social Change
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    Pomona College, Wig Distinguished Professorship Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2003 and 2010.

    Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1998-99.

    National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Summer Institute on Black Film Studies, 1999.

    National Black Programming Consortium, Post-production Grant, 1997-98; Sidney Poitier Fellowship for Emerging Black Filmmakers, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1994.

    College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship, 1993-95.

    Racial Awareness and Engagement Committee's Outstanding Faculty of Color, Pomona College, 1997; Minority Student Action Program Senior Recognition Award, Pomona College, 1995-1996 and 1996-1997; Pomona College Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship, 1993-94.

    Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, 1992-93.