Sophia A. McClennen works on the intersections between culture, politics and society. Her books focus on cultural responses to complex social change, such as satire and contemporary politics or the power of storytelling in advancing human rights. She is professor of international affairs and comparative literature at Penn State University and founding director of the Center for Global Studies. She also has a regular column with Salon.com.

She is currently Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Penn State University and founding director of the Center for Global Studies. Since founding the Center for Global Studies in 2010, she has raised over $6 million in funding. At Penn State she teaches courses on human rights culture, culture and globalization, media studies, global cinema, the cultures of displaced peoples, cross-cultural conflict resolution, political satire and critical theory.

She has published thirteen books and has two in process. Her most recent book is Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who Didn’t, which has a foreword by Michael Moore (Routledge 2023). She is also working on a project that advances the work done in Pranksters Vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Democracy (Cornell 2020), co-authored with Serbian activist, Srdja Popovic. A co-edited volume with Jeffrey DiLeo Left Theory and the Alt-Right is forthcoming from Routledge in 2023. She is also working on a book in the global impact of political satire: The Revolution Will Be Satirized.

She has published over 80 essays in books and journals. She writes regularly for Salon and has published in Slate, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Truthout, Counterpunch, and other sites as well. She has been interviewed by Neil de Grasse Tyson, CNN, BBC TV, Al Jazeera TV, Wall Street Journal TV, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Politico, Variety, The Hill, NPR-Miami, and CBC Canada among others.