Moving Image, Popular Media and Culture

Overview of Research Interests
In my research work, I acknowledge that culturally maligned objects (such as horror and pornography) express serious, complicated philosophical ideas. I have written various articles and chapters on contemporary issues in moral philosophy, selfhood studies and feminism, each of which proposes that (a) popular horror films and pornographic texts articulate the same concepts that concern philosophers (albeit in intuitive ways), and (b) these popular objects complicate and contribute to the on-going conceptual debates that define contemporary philosophical and political thought.

Qualifications

• PhD in Film, Media and Cultural Studies: ‘Selfhood as Instance of Horror: Ontology, Ideology and Narratives of Body-Terror’, University of Sussex
• MA (Hons) Modern Literature, University of Leicester (Distinction)
• BA (Hons) English, University of Leicester (First class)

Professional Affiliations

• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Scholarly Interest Group in Film-Philosophy, Horror Studies, and Adult Cinema History
• Founding Member of British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Special Interest Groups in Horror Studies, Film and Philosophy, and Screening Sex
• Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
• The Onscenity research group

Employment

Visiting teaching or research roles at other Universities

• Steve is currently Adjunct Research Professor in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa).

PhD Supervision and Examination
Current Principal Supervisions

• Calvo, K. Representations of Violence against Children in Film.
• Nisa, A. The Camera as Character: Theorising Non-Human Agency in the Found-Footage Horror Film.
• Lonergan, M. (Carleton University) Explicit Governance: Pornography, Technology, and Violence in the Digital Era.

Completed Principal Supervisions

• Stanton, R. R. (2019) Representations of Animal Harm and Objectification in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Films (1937-2016) Utilizing Theories of Romanticism, Speciesism, and Compassion.
• O’Donnell, J. (2017) The Digital Backlash Against Feminism: The Feminist Response to Gamergate and MRAs.
• Watson, T. J. (2015) Audiovisual Violence and Editorial Manipulation: The Relationship Between Violent Image-Content and Violent Image-Form.

Current Second Supervisions

• Herron, A. Queering the Porn Theatre: Sexual Spaces in New York City, 1967-1980.

Completed Second Supervisions

• Wiegand, E. Exploiting Reality: Selling Sex, Culture, and Authenticity in the Exploitation Documentary.
• Ross, A. (2020) Notions of Story, Plot, Narrative and Genre as Aspects of Creative Content in Narrative Cinema.
• Mahoney, C. (2017) A Historical Sensibility: Television, Postfeminism and the Second World War.

PhD Examination

Publications and Research Outputs

• “Appealing, Appalling: Morality and Revenge in I Spit on Your Grave (2010)”, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, (2022) DOI: 10.1080/10509208.2022.20451
• “If Nancy Doesn’t Wake Up Screaming: The Elm Street Series as Recurring Nightmare”, in Proctor, W. and McKenna, M. Critical Studies in the Horror Film Franchise. London: Routledge, 2022.
• “Re-examining Extreme and Hardcore Horror”, in Hickinbottom, Falvey, & Wroot (eds.) New Blood: Framing Horror in the 21st Century. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021.
• “Zmrcvarjen do smrti: cikel slasherjev”, Kino, 40/41, 2020.
• “Jigsaw: Torture Porn Rebooted?” in Bacon (ed). Horror: A Reader. New York: Peter Lang, 2019.
• “Preserved for Posterity?: Present-Bias and the Status of Grindhouse Films in the ‘Home Cinema’ Era”, Journal of Film and Video, 70:1, 2018.
• “Sex and Horror”, in Attwood & Smith (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality. London: Routledge, 2018.
• “Kartezijanstvo intersubjektivnost filmski seriji Paranormalno ter filozofiji duha”, Kino, 36, 2018.
• “The Origin of the Faeces”, Porn Studies, 4:4, 2017.
• “Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind”, Film-Philosophy, 21:1, 2017.
• “‘Tvoja Zgodba je Resnina in Ljudje to Cutijo’: Muenje v Kontekstu”, Kino, 31/2, 2017.
• “‘Extreme’ Porn?: The Implications of a Label”, Porn Studies, 3:3, 2016.
• “A View to a Kill: Perspectives on Faux-Snuff and Self”, in Jackson, Kimber, Walker, & Watson (eds.) Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.
• “Torture Pornopticon: (In)security Cameras, Self-Governance and Autonomy”, in Reyes & Blake (eds.) Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon. London: IB Tauris, 2016.
• “Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror”, Sexuality & Culture, 19:3, 2015.
• “Pretty, Dead: Sociosexuality, Rationality & the Transition into Zom-Being”, in Jones & McGlotten (eds.) Zombies & Sexuality: Essays on Desire & the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014.
• “Zombie Sex” (with McGlotten, S.), in Jones & McGlotten (eds.) Zombies & Sexuality: Essays on Desire & the Living Dead. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014.
• Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013.
• “No Pain, No Gain: Strategic Repulsion and The Human Centipede”, Cine-Excess, 1:1, 2013.
• “Gender Monstrosity”, Feminist Media Studies, 13:4, 2013.
• “XXXombies: Economies of Desire and Disgust”, in Balaji (ed.) Thinking Dead. New York: Lexington Books, 2013.
• “Twisted Pictures: Morality, Nihilism and Symbolic Suicide in the Saw Series”, in Aston & Wallis (eds.) To See the Saw Movies: Essays on the Saw Franchise. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013.
• “Video Nasty: The Moral Apocalypse in Koji Suzuki’s Ring”, LIT, 23:3, 2012.
• “Mindful violence? The Rambo Series’ Shifting Aesthetic of Aggression”, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 10:4, 2012.
• “The Lexicon of Offense: The Meanings of Torture, Porn, & ‘Torture Porn’”, in Attwood, Campbell, Hunter, & Lockyear (eds.) Controversial Images. London: Palgrave, 2012.
• “The Pure Moment of Murder: The Symbolic Function of Bodily Interactions in Horror Film”, Projections, 6:2, 2011.
• “Death of the Image/The Image of Death: Temporality, Torture and Transience in Yuuri Sunohara and Masami Akita’s Harakiri Cycle”, Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema, 3:1, 2011.
• “Porn of the Dead: Necrophilia, Feminism, and Gendering the Undead”, in Moreman & Rushton (eds.) Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011.
• “Dying to be Seen: Snuff-Fiction’s Problematic Fantasises of ‘Reality’”, Scope, 19, 2011.
• “‘Time is Wasting’: Con/sequence and S/pace in the Saw Series”, Horror Studies, 1:2, 2010.
• “Technologies of Isolation: Apocalypse and Self in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo”, Japanese Studies, 30:2, 2010.
• “Horrorporn/Pornhorror: The Problematic Communities and Contexts of Extreme Online Imagery”, in Attwood (ed.) Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography. New York: Peter Lang.

Recent Conferences & Talks

Examples of Public Engagement

• Script editor, translator, actor and writer for Necrostorm Films
• Interview for The Last Word on The Last House on the Left documentary, High Rising Productions
• Interview for The Emmanuelle Effect, High Rising Productions
• Guest Article, “Issues with the BBFC’S 2018 consultation exercise”, Screening Sex
• Interviews for Umetni Raj (RTV Slovenia)
• Interview for Cult Conversations
• Invited member of Delphi panel for ‘Pornography’s effects on audiences’ project, funded by the Australian Research Council
• Co-host and editor for the Horror Lab Podcast
• Porn Laid Bare symposium, invited consultant, Terence Higgins Trust/University of Sussex
• La Jetee and Twelve Monkeys: Time Travel Narratives, Memory and Human Drama. Guest Lecture, Tyneside Cinema (ScienceFest)

Editorial Board and Peer Review Experience

Peer Review – Journals

• Cultural Politics; Crime, Media, Culture; European Journal of American Culture; Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal; Feminist Media Studies; Gender & Society; Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance; Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies; Journal of Popular Television; Mosaic; New Review of Film and Television Studies; Participations; Porn Studies; Sexualities.

Peer Review – Monographs and Edited Collections

• Published by Edinburgh University Press; Routledge; IB Tauris; Palgrave-Macmillan; Rutgers University Press; McFarland; Bloomsbury; Sage; Pearson; Rowman & Littlefield.

Links to YouTube or Vimeo videos of relevant research work
https://youtu.be/hfvie18j9qQ
https://youtu.be/FjzS0KxM5Os
https://youtu.be/PmlXzGjY5ac

Email
steve.jones@northumbria.ac.uk

Twitter
@DrSteve_Jones

Personal Website
https://www.drstevejones.co.uk/

Academia.edu page
https://northumbria.academia.edu/SteveJones