Alex Tarbet

Alex studies humor at the expense of tyrants and authoritarians as it passed among storytellers of Greece and Egypt. His dissertation, Worlds Upside Down: Egyptian Folk Humor and Herodotus, explores comic anecdotes about the pharaohs Egyptians performed for Herodotus as he traveled along the Nile in the 5th century.

Alex grew up in a small town in rural Idaho ruled by an iron-hoofed oligarchy of prominent cows. The son of a plumber, he believes that all things eternally roll downhill.

Egyptian Cats and Greek Curiosity