My research interests include Romantic-period English literature and textual studies, which is concerned with the material production, transmission, and reception of texts of all kinds in multiple media. My publications have included articles and books such as The Satiric Eye, (ed., 2003), a collection of essays on Romantic-period satire, and Satire and Romanticism (2000), an argument about the role of satire in the construction of Romanticism, but also Against Technology (2006), about the historical Luddite movement, textile workers in England during the Romantic period (1812-17) who smashed machinery to protest unfair conditions of their trade, and how, almost 200 years later, the term “Luddite” has come to mean someone who is simply “against technology.”
As someone interested in texts and their material production, I’ve been involved in digital media and humanities computing since the 1980s. One result was my recently published book, The Meaning of Video Games (2008), which takes a textual-studies approach to video games and game-related media, including Myst and LOST, Katamari Damacy and Otaku culture, Halo and I Love Bees, Facade, the Star Trek holodeck, and theatrical improv, NIntendo’s Wii platform, and Will Wright’s forthcoming Spore.
Steven E. Jones
Professor of English
Department of English
402 Crown Center
6525 North Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60626
(773) 508-2240
fax: (773) 508-8696
sjones1-at-luc-dot-edu
Co-Editor, Romantic Circles
