Jesús Botello specializes in Spanish Golden Age literature and culture. Specifically, his research focuses on the intersections between literature and politics and between literature and discourse in the visual arts, technology, chivalry and medicine. Additional interests include material culture, political science and astrology. He teaches courses on Cervantes' Don Quijote and Novelas ejemplares, Golden Age theater and introductions to Medieval and Golden Age literature.

Dr. Botello's first monograph, Cervantes, Felipe II y la España del Siglo de Oro, examines how Philip II's strategic priorities and his decision-making style influenced Cervantes' Don Quijote in concrete and meaningful ways. The monarch's emphasis on written communication, the messianic character of his kingship and his obsession with collecting (particularly relics) serve to critically reevaluate Cervantes's masterpiece. Cervantes, Felipe II y la España del Siglo de Oro is arguably the first monograph that studies in detail the impact of Philip II's policies on Cervantes' novel.

His second book monograph, Literatura y pintura en Cervantes y Lope de Vega, was recently published with the prestigious company press Reichenberger. It analyzes significant aspects of the relationship between literature and painting in Cervantes and Lope de Vega, two of the authors who best represent in their texts the "pictorial fever" and the alliance between the "sister arts" that occurred during the Golden Age. It proposes that both authors use painting, and especially the procedure of ekphrasis (a verbal representation of a work of art, particularly a painting) as a metaphor or narrative procedure by which they illuminate their positions and concerns regarding issues of particular importance in their works.

Dr. Botello has also published, together with Professor Cristina Guardiola, a critical edition of the first book of Amadís de Gaula. Additional publications include scholarly articles in journals such as Anales cervantinos, Cervantes, Hispanófila, Anales galdosianos, Laberinto, Romance Notes and Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. ​​