James M. Thomas is a professor of sociology at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Working to Laugh: Assembling Difference in American Stand-Up Comedy Venues (2015) and Diversity Regimes: Why Talk Is Not Enough to Fix Racial Inequality at Universities (2020). He is also the coauthor of Are Racists Crazy? How Prejudice, Racism, and Antisemitism Became Markers of Insanity (2016) and Affective Labor: (Dis)Assembling Difference and Distance (2015).