Michael Branch on Humor, American Culture, and the Environment
Co-Sponsored by the Humor in America Project at UT


Michael Branch
Mike Branch is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches American literature, creative nonfiction, environmental studies, and film studies. He has published five books and more than 200 essays, articles, and reviews, and his essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and recognized as “Notable Essays” in The Best American Essays (three times), The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He has three books forthcoming, two of which are works of creative nonfiction that use humor to engage western landscapes. Rants from the Hill is a collection of 53 of his High Country News essays, which document the experience of living in the remote, high-elevation western Great Basin Desert. Raising Wild: Becoming a Father in the High Desert is his account of raising daughters in this beautiful and challenging wild desert landscape.