Jerma Jackson
Associate
Professor
M.A. Tufts University, 1986
Ph.D. Rutgers University, 1995
Jerma A. Jackson’s main research interest is twentieth century
social and cultural history, with a special interest on African
American life, religion, music and women’s history. In her first
book Jackson engaged music to examine black life and culture.
Published in 2004, Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a
Secular Age traces gospel from its beginnings as a mode of worship to
its expansion into commercialized culture during the forties and
fifties. Jackson uses the music to examine some of the mounting
changes that unfolded in the twentieth century--expanding
industrialization and urban migration, the growth of consumer values
and materialism, and the emergence of mass produced culture. With
gospel as her focus then, she considers how African Americans gave
meaning to these developments.
Jackson moves from the public sphere of churches, auditoriums and
concert halls to the private realm of black family life for her second
book project. She explores how personal memories of slavery, the
Civil War and Reconstruction circulated in black families and
communities in the twentieth century
Courses Offered as Schedules Allow
For current course listings, consult the Directory of Classes.
Contact
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil
Department of History
CB #3195, Hamilton Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3195
jaj@email.unc.edu