Bio/Description
Jon joined the department in 2018 after receiving his B.A. in English from Bard College (2017). His research interests include 19th- and 20th-century American fiction, early film, sociology, race and ethnicity, labor history, twentieth-century Marxism(s), psychoanalysis, and the work of Michel Foucault. His dissertation, tentatively titled Singular Cases, explores the development of American literary naturalism from roughly 1890 to 1945, tracing and historicizing the emergence of what he argues are the genre’s distinct procedures of characterization. He engages with the work of Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, James Agee, and others in conversation with early 20th-century sociology and political economy, as well as with various theories and practices of bio-political management.
Jon has precepted for courses on 19th-Century Fiction and Children’s Literature at Princeton. Before joining the department, he taught 9th grade English for the Fordham University branch of the TRIO Upward Bound program, a federally-funded initiative which provides college preparation for underprivileged youth, and he worked as Tutor Coordinator for the Bard College Learning Commons. He has served as the co-chair of the Princeton Americanist Colloquium since fall of 2019.