Laura Kasson Fiss

Dr. Laura Kasson Fiss specializes in Victorian media, from children's books to comic operas, with a particular emphasis on humor and what it can tell us about reception. Asking not only "why is this funny" but also "what do you need to know to get this joke," Fiss provides a window into Victorian media consumption -- she even studies the window as a metaphor for the page. Her articles address a range of topics in Victorian humor, and her current book project, Clubs for the Unclubbable: Humor and Mass Readership from Jerome K. Jerome to P.G. Wodehouse, explores the club as a metaphor for literary sociability in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British humor.

Dr. Fiss teaches a range of literature and interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities department, including courses in British literature and diversity. She is very interested in interdisciplinarity in teaching, research, and programming. Several of her classes have performed interdisciplinary projects with courses in other departments. In Fall 2016, she began a research position in interdisciplinarity and liberal education at the Pavlis Honors College.