Josef Benson

Josef Benson is associate professor of Literatures and Languages at the

University of Wisconsin Parkside where he offers courses in contemporary

literature, African American literature, gender studies, film, poetry writing,

fiction writing, and composition. He is the author of the Eisner Award nominated

book Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in

American Comics and Graphic Novels (University Press of Mississippi 2022), Star

Wars: The Triumph of Nerd Culture (Rowman & Littlefield 2020), J. D. Salinger's

the Catcher in the Rye: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield 2018), and

Hypermasculinities in the Contemporary Novel: Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison,

and James Baldwin (Rowman & Littlefield 2014). Additionally, his work has

appeared or is forthcoming in over twenty publications, including: Modern

Fiction Studies, American Literature in Transition, 1980-1990 (Cambridge UP),

Journal of Medical Humanities, Journal of Bisexuality, Southwestern American

Literature, The Raymond Carver Review, Saw Palm, and Moon City Review. He holds

creative writing degrees from Missouri State University and the University of

South Florida as well as a Ph. D. in literature with a heavy emphasis in gender

theory also from the University of South Florida, where he studied primarily

with Susan Mooney, John Henry Fleming, and Jay Hopler. For more information

about his next book Infinity Land: The Untold Story of Jeffrey Dahmer

(University Press of Mississippi 2026), visit josefbensondotcom.