Tok Thompson Information

Folklorist / Professor
University of Southern California
California

Biography:
Tok Thompson was born and raised in rural Alaska. He received a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from Harvard, and received his Masters and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by postdoctoral work at the Centre for Irish-Scottish Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. He researched Irish language traditions in County Fermanagh, and taught classes for the University of Ulster.

In 2006, Thompson came to USC, where he has been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in folklore and related topics. He has been a visiting professor at universities in Northern Ireland, Iceland, and Ethiopia. He co-founded the journal Cultural Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture, which he co-edited for 15 years. From 2013-2017 he was the editor for Western Folklore. He has published two books, Posthuman Folklore and a textbook on World Mythology entitled The Truth of Myth (co-authored with Gregory Schrempp) (2020). He currently edits the book series "Myth in Theory and Everyday Life" for Oxford University Press.