Dr Steve Jones
Senior Lecturer (Film and Media)
Adjunct Research Professor (Law and Legal Studies), Carleton University (Ottawa)

Research interests: Film, Horror, Pornography, Ethics, Gender, Selfhood

Website: Drstevejones.co.uk
Twitter: @DrSteve_Jones
Podcast: @The_HorrorLab

Academia.edu: Profile
ResearchGate: Profile
PhilPapers: Profile

About
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

• Editorial Board Member for Porn Studies Journal
• 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
• British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Special Interest Groups in Film and Philosophy and Screening Sex
• Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
• The Screening Sex Network
• The Onscenity research group 

Employment
Steve joined Northumbria University in 2010. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arts., and Head of Subject for the Media group. Steve is also Adjunct Research Professor in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa)
From 2011 - 2016 he was programme leader for the degree programme BA (Hons) Media, Culture and Society. In 2016-17 he was programme leader for the BA (Hons) Mass Communication programmes, and link tutor for the MSc Mass Communication Management (London campus). From 2018-2021, he was Head of Subject for the Media and Languages Programmes at Northumbria University, and is currently acting as external examiner for University of East London. 
Steve previously taught in the School of Film, Media and Music, University of Sussex (2006-2010).

​​Institutional Roles
Steve is currently a member of the departmental REF Internal review panel, he is Northumbria’s representative for the Media arm of the Northern Bridge Doctoral training scheme, and he is responsible for the Media and Communications subject level TEF submission. He has previously been a member of the Faculty Research and Innovation Committee, the Faculty Programme Approvals and Review Sub-Committee, the Faculty Ethics Committee, the Faculty Enhancement Board, and the Departmental Quality Committee. He has also acted as co-Lead of the Department Ethics Committee, and chair of the Departmental Technology Enhanced Learning committee.
Steve completed Northumbria’s Leadership and Management training programme in 2016. He also co-led the Mass Communication Programme revalidation in 2015.

​PhD Supervision 
Steve is currently supervising PhDs on the socio-technological implications of found footage horror films, and how cultural fears about technology, sex, and violence are reflected via snuff fiction. He has previously supervised PhDs on the concept of violence (broadly conceived), Gamergate and the new backlash against feminism, postfeminism in female ensemble television drama, and the attenuation of violence against animals in popular children’s feature films, . Steve has examined PhDs on captivity in contemporary American Horror cinema, intermediality in contemporary American independent film, spirituality in Thai TV horror-drama​, and the political implications of citizen journalism.
Steve welcomes PhD applications in the areas of horror film, pornography, gendered and sexual violence, and film-philosophy (particularly morality or the philosophy of mind). ​

Modules Taught

• Level 3: Media and Society
  
• Level 4: Media Studies; Cultural Studies; Approaches to Media and Culture; Concepts, Culture and Society; Issues in Film Studies
• Level 5: Culture and Society; Understanding Though Media; Media Spaces; Theory Taste and Trash; Researching Media and Film; Placement module
• Level 6: Media Dissertation; Media and Morality; Hollywood Industry and Imaginary; Animation; Contemporary British Cinema
• Level 7: Media Postgraduate Dissertation

Public Engagement 

• Script editor, translator and writer for Necrostorm Films
• Invited member of Delphi panel for ‘Pornography’s effects on audiences’ project, funded by the Australian Research Council
• Wild Justice: Revenge in Contemporary American Film, invited public lecture, Kurja Polt Film Festival, Slovenia.
• Masterclass with Fabrice du Welz, Kurja Polt Film Festival, Slovenia
• Torture Porn as Political Allegory, invited public lecture, Kurja Polt Film Festival, Slovenia
• Cut & Run:  A Brief History of the Slasher Film, invited public lecture, Abertoir Film Festival
• Remembering the Deuce, invited public lecture, Abertoir Film Festival
• La Petite Mort: Sex and Death in Hardcore Horror, invited public lecture, Offscreen Film Festival, Brussels
  
• Grindhouse in the Digital Age, invited public lecture, Offscreen Film Festival, Brussels
• Hard Body, Cold Heart: The Body in 80s Action Cinema, invited public lecture, Offscreen Film Festival
• 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)

Conferences & Talks

• Women in Horror: Moving Beyond Misogyny, invited seminar speaker, Coventry University.
• Grindigital: The Ghost of Grindhouse Present, Global Exploitation Cinemas: Historical and Critical Approaches, Lincoln University.
• Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival Horror, invited seminar speaker, University of Sunderland.
• A View to a Kill: Perspectives on Pseudo-Snuff and Self. The Cultural Mythology of the Snuff Film, Bournemouth University.
• How far can you go?: Ethics and Transgression. Invited keynote, University of Derby/Higher Education Academy.
• Torture/Porn before “Torture Porn”. Guest Lecture, De Montfort University.​

Recent Publications

• Jones, S. (2018) “Preserved for Posterity?: Present-Bias and the Status of Grindhouse Films in the ‘Home Cinema’ Era”, Journal of Film and Video, 70:1. 
• Jones, S. (2018) “Sex and Horror”, in Attwood, F.,and Smith, C, with McNair, B. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality. London: Routledge. 
• Jones S, (2017) “The Origin of the Faeces”, Porn Studies, 4:4. 
• Jones, S. (2017) “Cartesianism and Intersubjectivity in Paranormal Activity and the Philosophy of Mind”, Film-Philosophy, 21:1. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “’Extreme’ Porn?: The Implications of a Label”, Porn Studies, 3:3. 
• Jones, S. (2016) “A View to a Kill: Perspectives on Faux-Snuff and Self”, in Jackson, N., Kimber, S., Walker, J. and Watson, T. (eds.) Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media. New York: Bloomsbury. 

For a full list of publications and PDFs, click here

Peer Review
Steve has acted as a peer reviewer for journals such as Cultural Politics, Feminist Media Studies, Gender & Society, Participations, Porn Studies, The Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Mosaic, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Popular Television, New Review of Film and Television Studies,  Crime Media Culture, European Journal of American Culture, and Sexualities.
Steve has also peer reviewed monographs, proposals, text-books and chapters for numerous publishers, including Bloomsbury, Edinburgh University Press, IB Tauris, McFarland, Palgrave-Macmillan, Routledge, Rowman and Littlefield, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis.