Emily Jones
Associate Professor
CONTACT
Office: CPR 358-B
Phone: 813-974-9546
Email
BIO
Emily Griffiths Jones鈥 research and teaching specializes in the literature of early modern England, with emphasis on Milton, Shakespeare, and women writers. Her first book, Right Romance: Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England, deals with intersections between genre, religion, and politics. The book argues for a recontextualized understanding of romance鈥攁s a multi-generic narrative structure or strategy rather than a prose genre, and as a cherished mode for Puritan republicans as well as royalists鈥攁nd shows how English men and women turned to romance to construct diverse ideological communities for themselves as the chosen heroes of their nation鈥檚 turbulent history. Throughout her scholarship, Dr. Jones traces a vibrant literary tradition for anti-royalist writing in the period surrounding the English Civil War, and she explores early modern readers鈥 and writers鈥 passionate, playful, and queer emotional investments in texts. Her current book projects include:
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Milton in the Long 2020, about how and why Milton matters in our immediate political and cultural moment
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Odd Old Ends, with Matthew Carter, an edited collection about fannish literacies surrounding early modern texts
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Sappho, Shakespeare, Swift: Why Taylor is the Real Thing, with Jessica Cook and Michelle M. Taylor, on Taylor Swift's status as an emerging figure within the literary tradition
FOR PROSPECTIVE GRAD STUDENTS
Dr. Jones is committed to fostering students鈥 individual interests in early modern literature and genre studies. She has worked with graduate students on a diverse range of projects, including:
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early modern literature and eco-horror
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moral imagination in Spenser, Milton, and contemporary fantasy writers
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fan fiction as paracritical adaptation of Shakespeare
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post-medieval innovations in Shakespeare's romances
M.A. or Ph.D. students interested in working with Dr. Jones should begin by scheduling an in-person or virtual meeting to discuss their interests and goals.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. and M.A., Boston University
- B.A., Randolph-Macon Woman's College
AREA OF SPECIALTY
Early modern literature, Milton, Shakespeare, women writers, romance and epic, gender and genre, biblical poetics, literature and seventeenth-century politics, fandom and popular culture, Taylor Swift studies.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
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Right Romance: Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England. Penn State University Press, 2019.
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鈥溾楾he Frontier of the Rebellion is Everywhere鈥: Andor, Antifascism, and the Soft Power of the Shakespeare Vibe.鈥 In Odd Old Ends: Early Modern Literacies in Modern Fandom, edited by Matthew Carter and Emily Griffiths Jones. Forthcoming.
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鈥淪urprised by Ken: Greta Gerwig鈥檚 Barbie (2023) in Conversation with Paradise Lost.鈥 Milton Studies. Forthcoming.
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鈥The Life of William Cavendish: Chivalric Historiography and Royalist Dissent.鈥 In The Oxford Handbook of Margaret Cavendish, edited by Jacqueline Broad and Julie Crawford. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.
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鈥淟adies in Conversation: Milton, Cavendish, and the Fanciful Politics of Authorial Self-Insertion.鈥 In Cavendish and Milton: Rethinking Seventeenth-Century Literature and Culture, edited by Ann Baynes Coiro, Lara Dodds, and Lisa Walters. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.
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鈥溾楳atching with the accurs猫d Canaanites鈥: Lucy Hutchinson鈥檚 Foreign Queens, Religious Exogamy, and Race-Making.鈥 In Race / Queer / Queens, edited by Mira 'Assaf and Urvashi Chakravarty. ACMRS Press, 2026.
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鈥淧assive Obedience and the Problem of Tyranny in Rivall Friendship.鈥 In Discovering Bridget Manningham鈥檚 Rivall Friendship, edited by Jean Brink. Amsterdam University Press, 2025.
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鈥淩epublican Women Writers.鈥 In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women鈥檚 Writing, edited by Patricia Pender and Rosalind Smith. Palgrave, 2024.
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鈥淚ntimate Creations: Margaret Cavendish and the Violent Desires of Fandom.鈥 Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 21.3 (2021).
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鈥淣ot sparing Kings in what they did not right鈥: Aemilia Lanyer鈥檚 Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and the King James Bible.鈥 In Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace, edited by Kristin Bezio and Scott Oldenburg. Routledge, 2021.
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鈥淕lobal Performance and Local Reception: Teaching Hamlet and More in Singapore.鈥 In Teaching Social Justice Through Shakespeare, edited by Wendy Beth Hyman and Hillary Eklund. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
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鈥淗ereditary Succession and Death in Thomas Dekker鈥檚 The Wonderful Year and Thomas Middleton鈥檚 The Revenger鈥檚 Tragedy.鈥 SEL 56.2 (2016).
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鈥淏eloved of All the Trades in Rome: Oeconomics, Occupation, and the Gendered Body in Coriolanus,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Shakespeare Studies 43 (2015).
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鈥溾楳y Victorious Triumphs Are All Thine鈥: Romance and Elect Community in Lucy Hutchinson鈥檚 Order and Disorder,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Studies in Philology 112.1 (2015).
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鈥淢ilton鈥檚 Counter-Revision of Romantic Structure in Paradise Regained,鈥&苍产蝉辫;Huntington Library Quarterly 76.1 (2013). Special issue on Paradise Regained edited by John Rogers.