‘Daily Show’ work helped to prime ‘Bee’ showrunner At a glance

“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” is shown at 10:30 p.m. Wednesdays on TBS.

KINGSTON, N.Y. — With typical irreverence, Jo Miller, showrunner and executive producer of “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” explained her unlikely journey from doctoral candidate in medieval Jewish history to a professional comedy writer.

“Pogroms — they’re a laugh riot!” she said.

After fleeing academia and dabbling in real estate and construction management, Miller in 2009 landed a writing gig at “The Daily Show,” where she discovered a knack for filthy puns.

Miller has since brought her voracious intellect and love of research to “Full Frontal,” helping it to stand out in a crowded field for political humor. The show, which airs weekly on TBS, was nominated for two Emmys.

Separately, Miller and her team won an Emmy for their writing on the special “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”

Near her home in upstate New York, the transplanted Southerner — who studied at Yale University in Connecticut and the University of Cambridge in England — recently talked about political satire and the lessons she learned from Jon Stewart.

How did you wind up studying medieval Jewish history?

I was the world’s biggest Peter O’Toole fan. And professor John Boswell was teaching a High Middle Ages course (at Yale) and on the syllabus was “The Lion in Winter.” I thought, ‘Cool, I’ll take this course!’ He was one of the most brilliant medievalists ever. So I started taking other classes. ... We had this flourishing Judaic Studies Department in the ‘80s with these amazing scholars. I was so lucky to be there.

Your academic background is surprisingly relevant in 2017.

I always said the minute that nearly every survivor of World War II is dead, the cycle starts up — the denial — because, at that point, it’s no longer living history.

In West Germany they wallowed in guilt for half a century (after the Holocaust). We never dealt with slavery; we never dealt with the murderous legacy of Jim Crow. I grew up in Georgia. We were taught “Gone With the Wind” as history, that Robert E. Lee was a great guy. He was an … . We, as a people, really cherish myth.

You also dabbled in comedy in college?

Steve Bodow, who’s the showrunner at “The Daily Show,” and I started an improv group at Yale. That’s the one good thing I ever did in my life.

Bodow eventually asked you to apply at “The Daily Show.”

They needed women. At that moment, they didn’t have any. It was total affirmative action.

What did you learn from Jon Stewart?

Everything. I worked on nearly a thousand shows. Nobody is Jon, and nobody will ever be Jon. He would start with a thing he wanted to say, even if he didn’t know the exact parameters of it, then he felt his way through multiple drafts and followed that thread of whatever had gotten that fish hook into his chest. Sometimes it wasn’t until the rewrite that he discovered what that was.

Jon taught me how to get to that point and never be satisfied until you’ve finished it and tied it off at the end.