The Year’s Work in American Humor Studies, 2021

JOANNE GILBERT is the Charles A. Dana Professor Emerita of Communication at Alma College. She is the author of Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique, and her work has widely appeared in notable journals and collections. She has received numerous awards, including the Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies from the National Communication Association. Her performance background includes acting, directing, and performing professional stand-up comedy.

TODD NATHAN THOMPSON is Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a contributing editor to Studies in American Humor. Todd is author of The National Joker: Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Satire (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015). His current book project is titled A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840–1890 (2023, Penn State University Press). Todd has earned research fellowships through the Center for Mark Twain Studies, the American Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Lilly Library. His work on political satire and pre-1900 American literature has also appeared in American Periodicals, Scholarly Editing, Early American Literature, ESQ, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Teaching American Literature, and elsewhere. At IUP, Todd teaches graduate and undergraduate literature and writing courses, including classes on humor and satire, literature and activism, and pre-1900 American literature.