Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2009-Present) 

• Professor

• Previously served as:

  • Coordinator of the MA in Literature and MA in Composition and Literature Programs (2012-2016) 

  • Assistant Chair of the English Department (2016-2019)

• Email: todd.thompson@iup.edu 

• Accolades: 

  • IUP Distinguished Faculty Award for Research (2017)

  • Last Fellow, American Antiquarian Society (2024)

  • IUP Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching (2022)

  • IUP Center for Teaching Excellence Awards (2013, 2017, 2024)

Education: 

• University of Illinois–Chicago (2008)

  • Ph.D. in English

    • Dissertation: "Modest Proposals: American Satire and Political Change from Franklin to Lincoln"

• The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2000)

  • MFA in Writing

• Kalamazoo College (1997)

  • BA in English and Political Science

Recent Publications: 

• A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840–1890 (Penn State University Press, 2023).

• “The Year’s Work in American Humor Studies, 2021.” (With Joanne Gilbert.) Studies in American Humor 9.1 (2023): 84-177.

• “‘WHY WE SHOULD ANNEX’: Reprints and Repercussions of Twain’s New York Tribune Letters on Hawai‘i.” The Mark Twain Annual 20 (2022): 53-69.

Research and Teaching Interests: 

• Humor studies, political satire, 19th-century American literature, periodical studies, hemispheric American literature

Recent Conferences: 

• “‘The wreck was invisible to us’: Twain’s Nicaragua as Comic Graveyard of US Economic Imperialism.” American Literature Association, Chicago, May 23-26, 2024 (upcoming).

• “Weapons of Mass Distraction: A Comic Genealogy of A Connecticut Yankee’s Speculative Exceptionalism.” 2023 Quarry Farm Symposium on Mark Twain: Invention, Technology, and Science Fiction, Elmira, NY, Oct. 7, 2023.

• “Laugh Attack: Jokes and Jingoism in US-Mexico War-Era Jest Books and Comic Almanacs.” Comedy/Humor: American Humor Studies Association and Comedy Studies SIG conference, Saratoga, NY, July 10, 2023.