Associate Professor for the Department of English
Hoyt 218, jthomp32@uwyo.edu
Biography
Thompson teaches courses in rhetoric (The Rhetoric of Fiction, Rhetoric of Video Games) and media (Media Adaptation), as well as literature and composition. His research is focused on the game studies, classical rhetoric, and rhetorical theory, particularly Kenneth Burke. He has published The Post-9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination (Mcfarland 2017) with Marc A. Ouellette as well as the edited collection The Game Culture Reader (CSP 2013), and his articles and reviews have appeared in Rhetoric Review, M/C Journal, Arthuriana, JAC, CCC, QRDE, Reconstruction, and K.B. Journal, with essays appearing in edited collections from Routledge, Cambridge Scholars Press, and Parlor Press.
In 2008 he founded the Digital Humanities Lab, a research facility whose digital archive has joined that of the Learning Games Initiative, a transdisciplinary, inter-institutional research collective that studies, teaches with, and builds computer games.
Education
Ph.D., University of Arizona
M.F.A., University of Arizona
B.A., Pacific Lutheran University
Recent and Upcoming Courses
Video Game Theory
Media Adaptation
Rhetoric of Video Games
Classical Rhetoric and Pedagogy
Senior Seminar
Selected Publications/Awards
The Post 9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination (with Marc A. Ouellette)
The Game Culture Reader (co-edited with Marc A. Ouellette)
Special Issue: "Playing for Keeps: Games and Cultural Resistance." (with Marc A. Ouellette)
“Coding the Grail: Ready Player One’s Arthurian Mash-up,” (with Susan Aronstein)
“From ‘Big Time’ to ‘Turd Blossom’: George W. Bush and the Rhetoric of the Political Sobriquet”
“Rhetoric and Rising Sun: The Emergence of the War-Brother Topos”
