Roger Thompson taught at the Virginia Military Institute for fourteen years, where he was Professor of English and fine arts.  His research bridges the traditional disciplinary gaps between rhetoric, literature, and writing studies, and he has worked under fellowship at Harvard University pursuing cross-disciplinary research.  He is Senior Fellow at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, is the co-recipient of a CCCC Research Initiative Grant, and was invited to the inaugural Dartmouth Summer Seminar for Composition Research.  He is an award-winning nonfiction writer, and his scholarship and nonfiction has appeared in numerous academic and non-academic journals.  His primary area of research is in the history of rhetoric with a particular emphasis on classical and nineteenth-century rhetoric, but his recent work includes extensive scholarship on veterans and the culture of war.  He is co-author of Beyond Duty: Life on the Frontline of Iraq, a bestselling Iraq War memoir that has been translated into several languages and was covered by major media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, the CBC, and NPR.  In recent years, Thompson has extended his work on environmental issues and conservation. His book, No Word for Wilderness, reveals the plight of the rarest bears on earth, Italy's Marsican brown bear, and was the subject of numerous local profiles and articles.  It was the first publication to reveal the mafia's involvement in Italian bear territory. He has an extensive background in undergraduate research, directing a cross-disciplinary, international environmental research program in Banff, Alberta, for a decade, and his teaching and mentorship was recognized by VMI with several awards and grants.  He is senior editor of Don't Take Pictures magazine, a journal of fine art photography, and he has written extensively about outsider art with publications in Raw Vision and The Outsider. He received his PhD in Rhetoric and American Literature from Texas Christian University, and he received his BA and an MA in English from Baylor University. More information can be found here: https://ewfthompson.com/