Prof Darryl Jones has authored a new book, Sleeping with the Lights On: The Unsettling Story of Horror, exploring some of the horror genre’s most prevalent symbols and questions.
In an email statement to The University Times, Jones said: “The book arises out of a long fascination with horror that began with watching black and white horror movies as a child. I have come to see horror as inextricable from the history of human civilization.”
Calling the horror genre an “avant-garde art form which invites its audience to explore the limits of their own tolerance”, Jones stated that horror can pose serious existential and political and as a genre, included “something for everyone”.
Jones is the current Dean of the Arts, Humanities and Social Science (AHSS) Faculty and has taught at Trinity since 1994. He previously served as the Head of the School of English and is the director of the MPhil in Popular Literature in the School of English.
He has written and co-written multiple books studying the horror genre but is also an expert on 19th-century fiction. Titles that Jones has edited include Gothic Tales and Horror Stories: Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson.
Sleeping with the Lights On was published by Oxford University Press. Jones will embark on a tour across the UK and Ireland this week to promote this book, making appearances in Dublin, Belfast and London among others.
