Frances McDonald is a scholar of 20th-century American literature, critical theory, affect studies, and film. She is assistant professor of English at the University of Louisville, and the co-editor of
thresholds, a digital journal for creative/critical scholarship. Her current book project,
Forming Laughter, examines the relationship between representations of laughter in postwar American literature and film, and the cracking up of the subject in poststructuralist theory. Her work has appeared in
American Literature and
The Atlantic, among other venues.