Robert Mitchell is interested in the role of theories of emotional communication (for example, sympathy and identification), as well as the role of science, in the prose and poetry of the Romantic era. He is also interested in contemporary intersections between information technologies, genetics, and commerce, especially as these have been played out in the legal and literary spheres. He has published articles about the role of sympathy in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, the vision of science in Percy Bysshe Shelley's early poetry, and is co-editor of a collection of essays entitled Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body. He is currently revising a manuscript that outlines the history of theories of sympathy in the Romantic era, and he is also working on a multimedia project that investigates contemporary issues in genetic commerce.