Faculty Bios & Office Hours

Personal Biography

Professor of English, specializing in Literature, Film and Media Studies. Areas of expertise: Comparative literature; medieval Germanic languages and literature (Old English, Old Norse, Middle High German); English and European literature; cultural criticism; literary theory; gender theory; monster theory.

Education

B.A. University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D. Brown University

Recent Publications

“The Case for Hildeburg: Beowulf and Ethical Subjectivity.” Quidditas, vol. 43, 2022, pp. 37-53.

“Exploring the Cultural Mechanics of Social Inequality and Global Cultural Interdependence, “Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs, winter 2022, pp. 111-127.

“Only Lovers Left Alive: Expat Vampires and Post-Imperial Cosmopolitanism.”Vampire Films Around the World: Essays on the Cinematic Undead of Sixteen Countries, edited by James Aubrey, McFarland, 2020, pp. 195-208.

With Andrew Pantos, “Organizing the History of English Course by Linguistic Topic.” Teaching the History of the English Language/MLA Options for Teaching Series, edited by Colette Moore and Chris Palmer, Modern Language Association, 2019.

“Sublime Discomforts and Transformative Milksopishness: William Morris in Iceland.” Journal of William Morris Studies, vol. XXII, no. 3, winter 2018, pp. 23-37.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

Medieval/Renaissance British literature, film, mythology, classics, early world literature, fairy tales, children’s literature and comics/graphic novels, rhetoric, research, essay-writing.

Degree

PhD in Linguistics

University of Colorado Boulder

MA in Linguistics

University of Colorado Boulder

BA in Linguistics

University of Oklahoma

Published Works

• Beer, S., Harvey, A., Mous, M., Rapold, J. C., Schrock, T., Sosal, A. (2025). 2. Lateral obstruents in East Africa from an areal and historical perspective: a case for contact-induced non-change. (pp 9-26). de Gruyter Mouton.

Personal Biography

Cody Chambless is a Lecturer in English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He holds an M.A. in TEFL/TESL and specializes in applied linguistics, rhetoric and composition, and first-year student success. His teaching emphasizes active learning, process-based writing, and rhetorical awareness, with a focus on amplifying student voices and developing transferable skills for personal, academic, professional, and civic contexts. He is committed to student success through mentorship, direct engagement, and connecting students with campus resources.

Personal Biography

I have been teaching at MSU Denver since 1996. I originally came to MSU Denver to teach elementary language arts, with a focus on K-16 writing instruction. In 2007 I joined the Department’s writing faculty.

I love teaching in the First Year Writing program, especially 1008/1009 sequence.

My husband, Richard, is a Denver native and is a retired principal and science teacher for Denver Public Schools. We have two children: Evan and Janie. I enjoy spending time with family, reading murder mysteries and taking naps.

Education

PhD, English, Rhetoric and Composition Theory, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada,  1996.

MA, English, American Literature and American Drama, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah,  1991.

BA, English Secondary Teaching, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 1988.

Publications

Vigil, J. C., Parker, J. L., (2016). Moving Forward: What General Studies Assessment Taught us About Writing, Instruction, and Student Learning. Reclaiming Accountability: Improving Writing Programs through Accreditation and Large-Scale Assessments. In Will Banks, Wendy Sharer, Tracy Ann Morse, Michelle F. Eble (Ed.),  Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

Vigil, J. C., (2011). “The Rhetoric of John Cotton: Individual Revelation and Community Preservation”. In Jim Aubrey, special editor (Ed.), (vol. 6, pp. 36-40). Research Digest: A Quarterly Journal of Higher Education.

Vigil, J.C., Carlson, C.L., Prosenjak, N., Griffin, J.,  (1999). Strategies for Literary Reading, Writing and Research. Denver, Colorado: MSCD, Department of English.

Carlson, C. L., Vigil, J.C., Griffin, J., Prosenjak,  N., (1998). A Research Writer’s Guide to ENG 1020: Writing, Research and Technology.

Personal Biography

Lissa Cullen is a Lecturer in English and Education. She teaches First-Year Composition, leads a field experience course for pre-service teachers, and serves as a University Supervisor for student teachers. She has over 15 years of experience as an English teacher, instructional coach, and school leader in both public and independent schools.

Her background includes leading an instructional turnaround as Dean of Instruction and Assistant Principal at North High School, serving as a Writing Resource Teacher and Department Chair in Douglas County schools, and teaching English at Colorado Academy. Across these roles, she has designed literature and writing curricula, mentored teachers in workshop-based instruction, and developed professional learning communities that improved literacy outcomes.

Lissa is currently pursuing her doctorate in Educational Leadership. Her professional interests center on English and writing instruction, teacher preparation, and fostering student self-efficacy through reflective and engaging learning environments. She is also exploring how technology and artificial intelligence can be used to support effective teaching and learning.

Education

BA, English, University of Kansas

MA, Curriculum and Instruction with Aesthetics emphasis, University of Denver

Ed.S., Educational Leadership, University of Colorado

Personal Biography

Critical race, feminist and gender studies scholar with a particular interest in American and multi ethnic women’s writing focusing specifically on literature, poetry and life writing.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

American Literature, African American Literature, African American Women Writers, Women’s Literature, Hip-Hop and Literature, Composition, US Women of Color Literature, Life Writing and Auto/biography Studies

Research

African American Studies, American Studies, Popular Culture Studies, Critical Race Studies, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Hip-hop Studies, Life Writing Studies, Feminist Studies

Personal Biography

BA and MA in English Linguistics – Linguistics University, Pyatigorsk, Russia, Ph.D. in Linguistics – Ben-Gurion University, Israel. Have taught numerous courses for the MSU Denver Linguistics program since 2002. Associate Professor in the English Department since Aug 2010. Professor of English since 2014. Advisor of the Linguistics Club.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

Intro to Linguistics, Morphology and Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Typology, Phonology, Translation Studies

Research

Morphosyntax of English, text analysis, translation theory, grammaticalization, historical linguistics, literary semantics

Personal Biography

I am an enthusiastic lifelong learner and am proud to teach and have taught English (composition, rhetoric, literature, and film classes) student-centrically at MSU Denver since fall 1999.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

Composition, literature (specifically Victorian literature and culture, British Literature, children’s literature, mythologies, and horror/monster studies), cultural studies, film, folklore. My teaching philosophy is student-centric.

Research

Composition Studies, Monster Studies, Folklore, Mythology, British literature (Victorian, as well as 17th and 18th centuries), early American literature (17th-19th centuries), popular culture studies, extinction, rhetoric and pedagogical theory.

Education

PhD, English (Literary Studies), University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, 2015.

MA, English (Literature), University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 1999.

BA, English, University of Colorado at Boulder,  Boulder, Colorado, Magna cum laude. 1994.

Publications

Hoge, C. W., (2020). “Don’t…Don’t Believe the Hype! Vampiric Evolution in What We Do in the Shadows”. Vampire Films Around the World. In James Aubrey (Ed.), Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Hoge, C. W., (2020). “Monstrous Life Finds a Way: Jurassic Park and Monstrosity”. The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema: Essays on the Art and Principles of Ten Films. In Vincent Piturro (Ed.),  (pp. 209-228). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Hoge, C. W., (2014). Crawling Out of the Middle Ages: The Deep Literary Roots of the Vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend.  Reading Richard Matheson: A Critical Survey. Cheyenne Mathews and Janet V. Haedicke, eds. Baltimore, MD: Rowman & Littlefield: 2014. Print. 1-13..  In Cheyenne Mathews and Janet Haedicke (Ed.),  ( pp. 1-13.).

Hoge,  C.  W. ,  (2014).  The Dodo in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Exploration of the Gray Ghost Outside of the English Sentimental Eye.  In Lauren Beard and Antonio Viselli (Ed.),  (3 ed.,  vol. 83,  pp. 687-704).  Toronto, Ontario, CA : University of Toronto Quarterly.

Hoge,  C.  W. ,  (2013).  contributing editor.  Writing Guide for ENG 1008/1009 and ENG 190G.  In Roger Green, Jessica Parker, Luis Rivas, Jane Chapman Vigil, Charles Hoge (Ed.),  Southlake, TX : Fountainhead Press.

Degree

PhD in Literary Studies

University of Denver

MA in English Studies

Western Washington University

BA in English

Montclair State University

Professor Cynthia Kuhn teaches creative writing, literature, and film. She aims to offer student-centered courses that invite energetic and meaningful engagement with different texts, viewpoints, and voices.

Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Literary Hub, Copper Nickel, and other venues.

Scholarly books include Self-Fashioning in Margaret Atwood’s Fiction: Dress, Culture, and Identity and the co-edited Shirley Jackson: Influences and Confluences.

Novels include The Semester of Our Discontent, The Art of Vanishing, The Spirit in Question, The Subject of Malice, The Study of Secrets, How to Book a Murder, and In the Event of Murder.

Originally from upstate New York, she attended the University of Kansas, University of Colorado-Denver, and University of Denver.

Personal Biography and Education

J Eric Miller grew up in the mountains of Colorado and Montana.  Educated at the University of Montana (Bachelor’s degree), the University of Southern California (Master’s degree), and the University of Denver (Doctoral degree), he has been a professor of Creative Writing since 2000.

He is a faculty advisor for the university literary journals, The MSU Denver Roadrunner Review.

He believes in comfort of nostalgia, life choices that take animal welfare into account, the hypnotic effect of a good film or a book, second reads of everything, and the way a liberal arts centered education sets one up for success not just in a variety of career paths, but to be a thoughtful and thus useful citizen of the world.

Publications

His book length publications include Animal Rights and Pornography; Bloodletting and Fruits of Lebanon; and Decomposition.  Decomposition.  Animal Right and Pornography and Decomposition have been published in a variety of languages, including, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, and Russian.  Several short stories from the collection Animal Rights and Pornography as well as Decomposition have been optioned for film development.  His short fiction has appeared in:  American Short Fiction, Eclectica, decomP, Semaphore, Starry Night Review, Clementine Unbound, The/tEmz/Review, Litbreak, The Scarlet Leaf Review, eFiction, and others. His short story “Invisible Fish” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Personal Biography

Laura Niesen de Abruña, Ph.D., is currently  Professor of English and former Provost & Executive Vice President at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include academic programming, strategic planning,  diversity, equity and inclusion, HSI/Minority Serving Institutions, Title V and Title III grants, digital learning, American Literature, and literature of postcolonial women writers. As both an administrator and a faculty member, her career focus has been on culturally responsive pedagogy, academic innovation, enrollment, and retention student success initiatives.

In addition to teaching, she is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the Association of Chief Academic Officers, where she served as President, the American Conference of Academic Deans, the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, and a long-standing role as board member for Every Learner Everywhere (ELE) network of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.   She has published extensively in the areas of American literature, Caribbean literature, and academic administration, most recently having authored “Becoming a Provost,” featured in the Provost’s Handbook as well as “The Role of the Dean in Decision Making at the University Level in The American Council of Academic Deans’ Handbook. She has published a scholarly text, The Refining Fire: Herakles and Other Heroes in T.S. Eliot’s Works as well as 32 additional publications and  over 100 presentations nationally and internationally.

Before joining MSU Denver, Niesen de Abruña had a twenty-seven-year career as a Provost and Dean at Dominican University of Chicago, York College of Pennsylvania, Sacred Heart University, Rober William University, ad Heidelberg University.  She was the principal investigator on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation digital fellows project that supported more than 32 provosts at institutions around the country by implementing resources to improve undergraduate teaching and learning.  She has brought in over $80 million in gifts and grants to her institutions.

Education

Niesen de Abruña earned her B.A. in English from Smith College.  She received both her  Ph.D. and Master of Arts in English Language and Literature from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition, she holds a MS. Ed in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania.

Featured Publications

The Refining Fire: Herakles and Other Heroes in T. S. Eliot’s Works.  New York, Munich, and Bern: Peter Lang, 1992.  This is a scholarly monograph that analyzes the presence of heroic Greek values in the entire body of T. S. Eliot’s works.

Geography Lessons: Identity and Gender in the Literature of the English-Speaking Caribbean.  (In Progress. The manuscript is half-completed and copies of the completed chapters are available upon request). This book investigates what writers from various islands in the Caribbean have in common e.g., the colonial heritage and attitudes toward gender, work, and family life.

Publications

“Homi Bhabha as Public Intellectual at the Turn of the Millennium.”  Modern Language Studies. No. 1-2, Vol. 33, Winter-Fall (2003): 90-93. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, v. 285, 2009.

“Joan Riley, Buchi Emecheta, and Other Sea Changes: African-Caribbean and African American Women Writers in England.”  British Women Writing Fiction.  Ed. Abby H. P. Werlock. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: U of Alabama P, 2000.  270-92.

“Jamaica Kincaid’s Writing and the Maternal-Colonial Matrix.”  Caribbean Women Writers: Fictions in English.  Eds. Mary Conde and Thorunn Lonsdale.  London: Macmillan, 1999.  172-83.

“Dreams of Leaving: Mother and Mother Country in Jamaica Kincaid’s Fiction.” The Woman, the Writer, and Caribbean Society.  Ed. Helen Pyne-Timothy.  Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, Center for African American Studies, 1998.  164-75.

“The Ambivalence of Mirroring and Female Bonding in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones.” International Women’s Writing: New Landscapes of Identity.  Eds. Anne E. Brown and Marjanne E. Gooze.  Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. 245-52.

“Greek Arete and Heroic Figures in T. S. Eliot’s Poetry.”  Human Virtue and Human Excellence.  Ed. Arthur A. W. Adkins.  New York, Munich, and Bern: Peter Lang, 1991.  95-129.

“Family Connections: Mother and Mother Country in the Fiction of Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid.” Motherlands: An Anthology of Critical Writing on Black Women Writers from Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and Great Britain.  Ed. Susheila Nasta.  London: Women’s Press, 1990.  This book was reprinted in the United States under the title of Motherlands: Black Women’s Writing from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia.  Ed. Susheila Nasta.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1992.  257-89. Excerpts reprinted in Caribbean Women Writers.  Ed. Harold Bloom.  Ontario, Canada: Chelsea House.  108-09; 144-145.

“The ‘Incredible Indigo Sea’ Within Anglo-American Fiction.”  Engendering the Word: Feminist Essays in Psychosexual Poetics.  Ed. Temma Berg.  Introduction by Sandra M. Gilbert.  Urbana: U of Illinois P, Reprinted in Twentieth Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 138. Ed. Linda Pavlovski.  NY: Gale Group, 2003.

Personal Biography

Rebecca Gorman O’Neill is from Akron, Ohio, and she holds a BA in Drama and English from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.  She has worked professionally in film and stage theatre for the last 20 years. Her plays have been published and produced and across the country. At MSU Denver, she is a tenured professor whose expertise and courses cover playwriting, screenwriting, film and media studies, comics and the graphic novel, adaptation, and dramatic literature.

Publications

Selected Plays and Screenplays:

Lucia, Originally produced by Morehead Theater, Semifinalist, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Picnic Under a Gibbet, Richard Corso Films, Dark Rabbit Theatre, released 2020 (writer and producer)

The Ghosts of Us. Originally produced by the Athena Project, published by Next Stage Press, 2020.

Mynx & Savage. Originally Produced by Vortex Theater, Winner of the American Association of Community Theatre AACT NewPlayFest.  Published by Dramatic Publishing, 2018.

“The Green Crayon”. Originally Produced by And Toto Too Theatre Company, Published in Best Scenes for Kids Ages 7-15 In Lawrence Harbison (Ed.), New York, NY: Applause Books.

“Poison Control” originally produced by the InspiraTO Theatre, Toronto, Canada, Published by Heuer Publishing.

Selected Articles and book chapters:

“The Stuff of Legend: The Graphic Novel’s Re-imagination of Toy Literature.” Toy Stories: The Toy as Hero in Literature, Comics, and Film. Tanya Pell Jones (Ed.). MacFarland & Company: MacFarland & Company.

“Y: The Last Man”. Critical Survey of Graphic Novels: Heroes and Superheroes In Bart H. Beaty, Stephen Weiner (Ed.), (vol. 2, pp. 6p). Ipswich, Massachusetts: Salem Press.

“I See What You Mean”: Using Visuals to Teach Metaphoric Thinking in Reading and Writing. The English Journal, 100(1), p92-99. 8p. (with Dr. Gloria Eastman)

Degree

PhD in English

University of Denver

MA in English

University of Denver

BA in English & Pre-medical Biology

Baylor University

Published Works

• Parker, L. J. (2019). The Great Migration, 1910-1960. Greenwood,
• Parker, L. J. (2017). Writing and UnWriting Race: Using Hip Hop in Writing and Literature Classrooms . (). WAC Clearinghouse/University Press of Colorado. https://wac.colostate.edu/books/atd/antiracist/
• Parker, J. (2016). African Americans and the Vietnam Era, 1968-1973. ABC-CLIO,
• Parker, J. (2016). Backlash to Progress, 1973-1979. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). Cuban-Spanish-American War, 1868-1898. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). Federal Policy Changes, 1995-1998. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). Harlem Renaissance. ABC-CLIO,
• Parker, J. (2016). Latino Immigration and Migration, 1948-1955. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). Political Participation, 1920-1929. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). The Clinton Era and the Pulse of a New Day, 1992-1995. ,
• Parker, J. (2016). The Great Migration, 1910-1917. ,
• Vigil, C. J., Parker, L. J. (2016). Moving Forward: What General Studies Assessment Taught us About Writing, Instruction, and Student Learning.. (). Utah State University Press.
• Parker, L. J. (2013). Opening a Space for Saying: Hip Hop, Public Space, and African-American Communities. ABC-CLIO,
• Parker, L. J. (2013). The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance: No Migration, No Movement . ABC-CLIO
• Parker, L. J. (2011). Three Problems in Booker T. Washington’s Approach. ABC CLIO,
• Parker, L. J. (2011). Up From Slavery. (pp 427-445). Greenwood.
• Parker, L. J. (2011). Walter Mosley . (pp 299-319). Greenwood.
• Parker, L. J. (2010). Art Blakey. ABC-CLIO/Greenwood,
• Parker, L. J. (2010). Chuck Berry. ABC-CLIO/Greenwood,
• Parker, L. J. (2010). George Clinton. ABC-CLIO/Greenwood,

Personal Biography

Vincent Piturro, Ph.D., is a professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He received his doctorate in Film Studies from the University of Colorado Denver in 2008.

Piturro’s scholarship focuses on Westerns, science fiction, documentary film, Italian cinema, and Italian-American cinema. He edited and co-wrote The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema (McFarland, 2021), a volume in which he co-wrote a chapter on each film alongside scientists who examine the real science behind iconic science fiction films.

Piturro co-founded the Science Fiction Film Series, which he co-presented for 13 years in partnership with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Film Society. He hosts the monthly Cube Cinema Showcase in Central Park. He writes the “Indie Prof” film column for The Front Porch and has served as co-chair of the university’s Carnegie Community Engagement Classification task force.

Select Publications

Piturro, Vincent. “Reverse Transvestism and the Classic Hero: The Ballad of Little Jo and the Archetypal Western (Fe)male.” Love in Western Film and Television, edited by Sue Matheson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 111-124.

Piturro, Vincent. “Documentary Film Rhetoric: Saving Face and the Public Sphere.” IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication and Film, vol. 2, no. 1, 2014, doi.org/10.22492/ijmcf.2.1.03.

Piturro, Vincent. “The Beginning and the End: Gay Representations in Brokeback Mountain and 3:10 to Yuma.” , edited by Scott F. Stoddart, McFarland, 2016, pp. 81-94.

Piturro, Vincent. “Genre, Decay, and Meta-Cinema: Only Lovers Left Alive and the Decline of Civilization.” Les Variations Jarmusch, edited by Esther Heboyan, Artois Presses Université, 2017.

Piturro, Vincent, editor. The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema. McFarland, 2021.

Personal Biography

Luis Rivas, Ph.D., is a Full Professor of English in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He received his doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition Theory from the University of Nebraska.

Rivas’s research focuses on rhetoric, composition, professional writing, and writing pedagogy. He has served as director of the College Assistance Migrant Program, overseeing daily operations and reporting to the Office of Migrant Education, and has presented at multiple Office of Migrant Education conferences to share program experience with other CAMP institutions.

Select Publications

Green, Roger, Jessica Parker, Luis Rivas, Jane Chapman Vigil, and Charles Hoge, editors. Writing Guide for ENG 1008/1009 and ENG 190G. Fountainhead Press, 2013.

Personal Biography

Allison Ross teaches film and new media and researches these topics through the lenses of documentary and narrative studies, queer theory and disability studies. Her research takes a theory-practice approach to examining history, memory, and experiential truth in the age of recombinant logic and artificial intelligence. Published in Docalogue (2018), Media Fields (2019), and Spectator (2019), her writing will appear in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Disability and Horror. Her game, Fall (2021), co-created with James Kim, screened at USC’s Games Expo (2021), where she received a Ph.D. in 2022.

Personal Biography

I am a composition and rhetoric professor who enjoys making my field accessible and relevant to the next generation of scholars.

Education

Lisa Suter earned her B.A. in Modern Languages and M.A. in Composition and Rhetoric from Wright State University. She received her Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from Miami University.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

Climate Change Advocacy Writing, Rhetoric and Style, Scholarly Writing, First-Year Writing, Honors Writing

Research

Climate change activism rhetorics, 19th century rhetorical history, women’s rhetoric, gendered rhetorical performance, student engagement & success

Published Works
Suter, K. L. . “Acting Like Rhetors: U.S. Women’s Rights in Amateur Theatrical Performances”. (pp Entire book, 485pp; my chapter, 20pp). Modern Language Association.
Suter, K. L. (2013). “The Arguments They Wore: The Role of the Neoclassical Toga in American Delsartism” . (pp 134-153). Routledge Press.
Suter, K. L. (2011). “Living Pictures, Living Memory”: Women’s Rhetorical Silence within the American Delsarte Movement” . (pp 94-112). Southern Illinois University Press.

Personal Biography

Craig Svonkin is Executive Director of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association and Full Professor of English at MSU Denver. Craig is a fan of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, David Wilson’s meta-museum, Disneyland, the Muppets, and most things fake, faux, or simulated. Craig’s most recent publication is the co-edited Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry (2023), which includes his essay “From Shingled Hippo to Gay Unicorn: Self-Othering in Bob Kaufman and Other Beats,” as well as interviews with quite a few American poets and poetry scholars. Craig’s essays—including “From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney”; “A Southern California Boyhood in the Simu-Southland Shadows of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room”; “Manishevitz and Sake, the Kaddish and Sutras: Allen Ginsberg’s Spiritual Self-Othering”; “Melville and the Bible: Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, Multivocalism, & Plurality”; and “From Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart: Becoming the Other; Suiciding the White Male ‘Self’”—explore American and children’s literature, poetry, culture, and film. He has or soon will publish on family structures as seen in literature, comics, and picture books; Jewish literature and film; Beat and mid-century American poetry; urban spaces and unusual museums; children’s poetry; and a variety of authors or filmmakers including Gertrude Stein, Bob Kaufman, Juan Delgado, J.K. Rowling, Mani Leyb, Saul Bellow, Sylvia Plath, Herman Melville, George Lucas, Walt Disney, Ernst Lubitsch, and John Fowles.

Teaching Interests

American Literature; Children’s Literature and Culture; American Film and Visual Culture; Poetry; Critical Theory

Research

American Literature; Children’s Literature and Culture; Poetry; American Film and Visual Culture

Personal Biography

David Gasbarro Tasker teaches First-Year Writing at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He holds an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University, where his dissertation explored the assignments and language of student writing in the English department.

Personal Biography

H. Taylor, PhD (Southern Illinois 1994)

My areas of expertise are Medieval & Early Modern Literature, Mythology, Postcolonial Literature, and Online Education. I am also an internationally recognized scholar of the literature and mythopoeic postmodernism of the Oxford Inklings movement and serve as an Esteemed Advisor to the Owen Barfield Literary Estate.

Selected Publications

Barfield, Owen. The Tower: Major Poems and Plays. Ed. Leslie A. Taylor and J. H. Taylor. Clemson, SC: Parlor Press, 2021.

Taylor, J. H. and Leslie A. Taylor. The Influence of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2017.

Taylor, J. H. “The Dutch Translations of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae.” in Vernacular Traditions of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae. Ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016.

Gorlach, Marina, J. H. Taylor, and Leslie A. Taylor. “The Hebrew Translations of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae.” in Boethius and Vernacular Traditions of The Consolation of Philosophy. Ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016.

Taylor, J. H. Four Levels of Meaning in the York Cycle of Mystery Plays: A Study in Medieval Allegory. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2006.

Taylor, J. H. “Synthetic Tensions: Kenneth Burke’s Pentad Meets Mary Douglas’s Grid/Group Cosmology.” KB Journal. 8 July 2004.

Personal Biography

Anthony Yarbrough is a Lecturer in English in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Blue Mesa Review, the university’s flagship literary magazine. His short fiction has been published in Boulevard and Prairie Schooner.