Metropolitan State University of Denver

Dr Craig A Svonkin

Personal Biography Statement

Craig Svonkin, assistant professor of English at Metropolitan State College of Denver, specializes in American Literature, Children’s Literature, American Poetry, and American Film and Visual Culture. He has taught courses in composition, mythology and literature, children's literature, theory, film and film theory, and American literature. He co-authored New Directions in American Literary Scholarship: 1980-2002 with Emory Elliott, and has published articles including “Melville and the Bible: Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, Multivocalism, & Plurality” and “If Only L.A. Had a Soul: Spirituality and Wonder at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.” His essay “From Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart: Becoming the Other, Suiciding the White Male ‘Self’” was published in the fall 2008 issue of Pacific Coast Philology.

Educational Biography

 University of California, Riverside, Ph.D. 2008
 California State University, Los Angeles, Master of Arts Degree, English. June 1997
 University of Southern California, Bachelor of Arts Degree, English. December 1986

Research Areas/Interests

 Children's Literature and Culture
 Literary, rhetorical, and cultural theory
 Nineteenth / Twentieth Century American Literature
 Film and Visual Culture

Professional Affiliations

 Member, Children's Literature Association
 Member, Modern Language Association
 Member, Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (currently Executive Director)
 Member, Popular Culture Association

Selected Publications

Articles and Monographs:
 "From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney" (In Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology, 2012)
 “Muggles, Giants and House Elves, Oh My: Harry Potter, Liberalism, and the Problem of Evil” (In Research Digest, a quarterly multidisciplinary research journal published in India, 2011)
 "A Southern California Boyhood in the Simu-Southland Shadows of Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room" (In Disneyland and Culture: Essays on the Parks and Their Influence, 2010)
 “Manishevitz and Sake, the Kaddish and Sutras: Allen Ginsberg’s Spiritual Self-Othering” (College Literature, Fall 2010)
 “From Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart: Becoming the Other; Suiciding the White Male ‘Self’” (Pacific Coast Philology, Fall 2008)
 “If Only L.A. Had a Soul: Spirituality and Wonder at the Museum of Jurassic Technology” (Crate: A Journal of Literary Borders and Boundaries, vol. 1.1, Spring 2005, pp. 79-83)
 New Directions in American Literary Scholarship: 1980-2002 (Co-authored with Emory Elliott; A volume in the Currents of American Scholarship series, U.S. Department of State, 2004, 51 pages)
 “Melville and the Bible: Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, Multivocalism, & Plurality” (Letterature D’America, Anno XXI, n. 88-89, 2001, “The Americans and the Bible” special issue, pp. 53-73)

Selected Presentations

 "'I'm not myself, you see': Competing Alices from Disney to Svankmajer to Burton" (Popular Culture Association Conference, Boston, April 12, 2012)
 “Future’s Past: The Erosion of Possibility in Disney Theme Park Science Fictional Discourse.” Presented with Jeremiah Axelrod. (Eaton Science Fiction Conference. Riverside, CA. February 11, 2011)
 “Crude, Lewd, Anti-Semitic, and Proud: Jewish Ironic Voices in the 21st Century” (College English Association Conference, San Antonio, March 27, 2010)
 “Spectres of Marx (Groucho, that is) in Post-World War II Jewish American Literature” (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, November 7, 2009)
 “L. Frank Baum’s Patchwork Girl of Oz: The Freak as Object of Doubling Desire” (Freaks at 30: A Fiedlerian Retrospective Panel; Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, December 2008)
 “From Life Studies to The Book of the Body: Lowell’s and Bidart’s Shape-Shifting Personae” (Poetry and Poetics Panel; PAMLA Conference, Pomona College, November 7-8, 2008)
 “Crypto-Jews in Contemporary Jewish American Children’s Literature” (Rocky Mountain MLA Conference, October 9-11, 2008)
 “Theorizing Multicultural and Multiethnic Children’s Fantasy” (Children’s Literature Association Conference, Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, June 12-14, 2008)
 “Alice and Dorothy in ‘Adultland’: Children's Literature Literacy for Readers of Adult Fiction” (“Evolving Literacies”: 10th Annual Metropolitan State College of Denver Honors Conference, March 19, 2008)
 "L. Frank Baum, the Patchwork Girl of Oz, and Blackface Harlequin Minstrelsy" (Children's Literature Panel, PAMLA Conference, 2007)
 "'White-Flight' and Urban Anxieties from Charles Brockden Brown to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village" (Presiding Officer /Presenter, Social Memory/Cultural Amnesia, PAMLA Conference, 2006)

Courses Taught

ENG-1010,ENG-2100,ENG-2210,ENG-2220,ENG-2460,ENG-2850,ENG-3440,ENG-3461
,ENG-412C,ENG-4610,ENG-463B,HON-4610

Current Semester Schedule