James McNaughton has published nonfiction in Southern Cultures and Alabama Humanities Review, as well as literary and cultural criticism in Modern Fiction Studies, Irish Studies Review, and other outlets. His first book, Samuel Beckett and the Politics of Aftermath, came out with Oxford University Press in 2018. He is currently finishing Clown for President!, a cowritten book that reads Todd Phillip’s 2019 blockbuster Joker to unfold how late capital depoliticizes the demos, then spurs a backlash in violence, conspiracy, and authoritarianism. He lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.