Steven E. Jones – författare

The past decade has seen a profound shift in our collective understanding of the digital network. What was once understood to be a transcendent virtual reality is now experienced as a ubiquitous grid of data that we move through and interact with every day, raising new questions about the social, locative, embodied, and object-oriented nature of our experience in the networked world.In The Emergence of the Digital Humanities, Steven E. Jones examines this shift in our relationship to digital technology and the ways that it has affected humanities scholarship and the academy more broadly. Based on the premise that the network is now everywhere rather than merely "out there," Jones links together seemingly disparate cultural events—the essential features of popular social media, the rise of motion-control gaming and mobile platforms, the controversy over the "gamification" of everyday life, the spatial turn, fabrication and 3D printing, and electronic publishing—and argues that cultural responses to changes in technology provide an essential context for understanding the emergence of the digital humanities as a new field of study in this millennium.The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203093085, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The past decade has seen a profound shift in our collective understanding of the digital network. What was once understood to be a transcendent virtual reality is now experienced as a ubiquitous grid of data that we move through and interact with every day, raising new questions about the social, locative, embodied, and object-oriented nature of our experience in the networked world.In The Emergence of the Digital Humanities, Steven E. Jones examines this shift in our relationship to digital technology and the ways that it has affected humanities scholarship and the academy more broadly. Based on the premise that the network is now everywhere rather than merely "out there," Jones links together seemingly disparate cultural events—the essential features of popular social media, the rise of motion-control gaming and mobile platforms, the controversy over the "gamification" of everyday life, the spatial turn, fabrication and 3D printing, and electronic publishing—and argues that cultural responses to changes in technology provide an essential context for understanding the emergence of the digital humanities as a new field of study in this millennium.The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203093085, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Meaning of Video Games takes a textual studies approach to an increasingly important form of expression in today’s culture. It begins by assuming that video games are meaningful–not just as sociological or economic or cultural evidence, but in their own right, as cultural expressions worthy of scholarly attention. In this way, this book makes a contribution to the study of video games, but it also aims to enrich textual studies.Early video game studies scholars were quick to point out that a game should never be reduced to merely its "story" or narrative content and they rightly insist on the importance of studying games as games. But here Steven E. Jones demonstrates that textual studies–which grows historically out of ancient questions of textual recension, multiple versions, production, reproduction, and reception–can fruitfully be applied to the study of video games. Citing specific examples such as Myst and Lost, Katamari Damacy, Halo, Façade, Nintendo’s Wii, and Will Wright’s Spore, the book explores the ways in which textual studies concepts–authorial intention, textual variability and performance, the paratext, publishing history and the social text–can shed light on video games as more than formal systems. It treats video games as cultural forms of expression that are received as they are played, out in the world, where their meanings get made.

The Meaning of Video Games takes a textual studies approach to an increasingly important form of expression in today’s culture. It begins by assuming that video games are meaningful–not just as sociological or economic or cultural evidence, but in their own right, as cultural expressions worthy of scholarly attention. In this way, this book makes a contribution to the study of video games, but it also aims to enrich textual studies.Early video game studies scholars were quick to point out that a game should never be reduced to merely its "story" or narrative content and they rightly insist on the importance of studying games as games. But here Steven E. Jones demonstrates that textual studies–which grows historically out of ancient questions of textual recension, multiple versions, production, reproduction, and reception–can fruitfully be applied to the study of video games. Citing specific examples such as Myst and Lost, Katamari Damacy, Halo, Façade, Nintendo’s Wii, and Will Wright’s Spore, the book explores the ways in which textual studies concepts–authorial intention, textual variability and performance, the paratext, publishing history and the social text–can shed light on video games as more than formal systems. It treats video games as cultural forms of expression that are received as they are played, out in the world, where their meanings get made.

This book addresses the question of what it might mean today to be a Luddite--that is, to take a stand against technology. Steven Jones here explains the history of the Luddites, British textile works who, from around 1811, proclaimed themselves followers of "Ned Ludd" and smashed machinery they saw as threatening their trade. Against Technology is not a history of the Luddites, but a history of an idea: how the activities of a group of British workers in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire came to stand for a global anti-technology philosophy, and how an anonymous collective movement came to be identified with an individualistic personal conviction. Angry textile workers in the early nineteenth century became romantic symbols of a desire for a simple life--certainly not the original goal of the actions for which they became famous. Against Technology is, in other words, a book about representations, about the image and the myth of the Luddites and how that myth was transformed over time into modern neo-Luddism.

This book addresses the question of what it might mean today to be a Luddite--that is, to take a stand against technology. Steven Jones here explains the history of the Luddites, British textile works who, from around 1811, proclaimed themselves followers of "Ned Ludd" and smashed machinery they saw as threatening their trade. Against Technology is not a history of the Luddites, but a history of an idea: how the activities of a group of British workers in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire came to stand for a global anti-technology philosophy, and how an anonymous collective movement came to be identified with an individualistic personal conviction. Angry textile workers in the early nineteenth century became romantic symbols of a desire for a simple life--certainly not the original goal of the actions for which they became famous. Against Technology is, in other words, a book about representations, about the image and the myth of the Luddites and how that myth was transformed over time into modern neo-Luddism.

It’s the founding myth of humanities computing and digital humanities: In 1949, the Italian Jesuit scholar, Roberto Busa, S.J., persuaded IBM to offer technical and financial support for the mechanized creation of a massive lemmatized concordance to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Using Busa’s own papers, recently accessioned in Milan, as well as IBM archives and other sources, Jones illuminates this DH origin story. He examines relationships between the layers of hardware, software, human agents, culture, and history, and answers the question of how specific technologies afford and even constrain cultural practices, including in this case the academic research agendas of humanities computing and, later, digital humanities.

It’s the founding myth of humanities computing and digital humanities: In 1949, the Italian Jesuit scholar, Roberto Busa, S.J., persuaded IBM to offer technical and financial support for the mechanized creation of a massive lemmatized concordance to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Using Busa’s own papers, recently accessioned in Milan, as well as IBM archives and other sources, Jones illuminates this DH origin story. He examines relationships between the layers of hardware, software, human agents, culture, and history, and answers the question of how specific technologies afford and even constrain cultural practices, including in this case the academic research agendas of humanities computing and, later, digital humanities.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Cropping up everywhere, whether steel latticework or tapered monopoles, encrusted with fiberglass antennas, cell towers raise up high into the air the communications equipment that channels our calls, texts, and downloads. For security reasons, their locations are never advertised. But it’s our romantic notions of connectivity that hide them in plain sight. We want the network to be invisible, ethereal, and ubiquitous. The cell tower stands as a challenge to these desires. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

In the tradition of The Old, Weird America and Deliver Me from Nowhere, cultural critic Steven E. Jones explores American pop culture through the work of record producer Tom Wilson, and the artists with whom he collaborated in the miraculous year 1966.1966 was a transformative year in popular culture, and especially in popular music. It's the year when go-go dancing met the electric blues, bubblegum pop met underground rock, free jazz met psychedelia, and they all morphed into one another like fluid blobs in a liquid light show. Diversifying radio formats, including the emergence of "underground" FM stations, greeted an efflorescence of boundary-breaking artists, records, and songs, at once showcasing and encouraging fervent experimentation. At the center of these changes, by turns channeling and amplifying these vibrant energies, stood the profoundly influential, if subsequently unheralded, record producer, Tom Wilson.It would be hard to find a figure more solidly located at the junction of the currents traversing America in 1966: a Black man working in almost exclusively white studio settings, Wilson played a vital role in an astonishing array of landmark records: after producing Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel in the previous year, in 1966 alone Wilson produced albums from Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground, Hugh Masekela, The Animals, Sun Ra, and more. Any one of these would be a standout on most producers' resumes. Taken together, they testify to an influential career, and invite a new appraisal of a pivotal moment in American pop culture. As Jones reveals in this energetic account, Wilson's radical eclecticism, his embrace of diverse musical genres, was a response to the times, as was his engagement with the music industry as a whole and with the low and the high in pop culture. It was all part of making pop music in what he called "an era of complex mixed media," and what he meant by his often-repeated catch-phrase, "everything is everything."Dying young in 1978, without leaving behind a significant archive of interviews or writings, Wilson has been unjustly overlooked. Everything is Everything provides a long overdue testimonial, celebrating him as an avatar of the most important trend in pop music in 1966: an exploding eclecticism, accompanied by a sometimes desperate search for authenticity.

In the tradition of The Old, Weird America and Deliver Me from Nowhere, cultural critic Steven E. Jones explores American pop culture through the work of record producer Tom Wilson, and the artists with whom he collaborated in the miraculous year 1966.1966 was a transformative year in popular culture, and especially in popular music. It's the year when go-go dancing met the electric blues, bubblegum pop met underground rock, free jazz met psychedelia, and they all morphed into one another like fluid blobs in a liquid light show. Diversifying radio formats, including the emergence of "underground" FM stations, greeted an efflorescence of boundary-breaking artists, records, and songs, at once showcasing and encouraging fervent experimentation. At the center of these changes, by turns channeling and amplifying these vibrant energies, stood the profoundly influential, if subsequently unheralded, record producer, Tom Wilson.It would be hard to find a figure more solidly located at the junction of the currents traversing America in 1966: a Black man working in almost exclusively white studio settings, Wilson played a vital role in an astonishing array of landmark records: after producing Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel in the previous year, in 1966 alone Wilson produced albums from Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground, Hugh Masekela, The Animals, Sun Ra, and more. Any one of these would be a standout on most producers' resumes. Taken together, they testify to an influential career, and invite a new appraisal of a pivotal moment in American pop culture. As Jones reveals in this energetic account, Wilson's radical eclecticism, his embrace of diverse musical genres, was a response to the times, as was his engagement with the music industry as a whole and with the low and the high in pop culture. It was all part of making pop music in what he called "an era of complex mixed media," and what he meant by his often-repeated catch-phrase, "everything is everything."Dying young in 1978, without leaving behind a significant archive of interviews or writings, Wilson has been unjustly overlooked. Everything is Everything provides a long overdue testimonial, celebrating him as an avatar of the most important trend in pop music in 1966: an exploding eclecticism, accompanied by a sometimes desperate search for authenticity.

This set offers a representitive collection of the verse satire of the Romantic period, published between the mid-1780s and the mid-1830s. As well as two single-author volumes, from William Gifford and Thomas Moore, there is also a wealth of rare, unedited material.