Craig Svonkin

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Craig Svonkin

Professor of English

English

Bio

Craig Svonkin received his B.A. from USC, his M.A. from California State University, Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. He is a writer of flash fiction and prose poetry fragments, a Professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and has served as PAMLA’s Executive Director since March 2009.
Craig's most recent publications are "From Rebels to Emperors to Jedi Spirits: Walt Disney, George Lucas, and Their Fans" in Richard Ravalli's edited collection Lucas: His Hollywood Legacy (2024) and the forthcoming "Lubitsch’s ‘Hidden Jewish Touch’: Jewish Anxieties and Gallic Desires" in David John Boyd's edited collection Refocus: The Historical Films of Ernst Lubitsch (2025). His published essays also include “Postmodern Documentary: The Return of the Magus on Video” (2016), “From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney” (2012), “Manishevitz and Sake, the Kaddish and Sutras: Allen Ginsberg’s Spiritual Self-Othering” (2010), “A Southern California Boyhood in the Simu-Southland Shadows of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room” (2011), “From Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart: Becoming the Other; Suiciding the White Male ‘Self’” (2008), and “Melville and the Bible: Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, Multivocalism, & Plurality” (2001).

Craig is the co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry (2023) with Steven Gould Axelrod. As part of the Bloomsbury Handbook, Craig conducted and edited (or co-conducted and edited) many interviews with poets and poetry scholars, as well as writing the essay “From Shingled Hippo to Gay Unicorn: Self-Othering in Bob Kaufman and Other Beats.” The book has been complimented as “multicultural and multifaceted, personal and provocative, witty and wacky.” It has also been described as “a whale of a book” and a “charming, idiosyncratic, and weirdly seductive map to a whole lot of poems.” Svonkin has also co-authored “Introduction: The Metafamily” (2018, with Steven Gould Axelrod), “A New Parliament of Fouls: The 2015 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry” (with Lissa Paul and Kate Pendlebury), “Old Guard→Avant-Garde→ Kindergarde: The 2014 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry” (with Lissa Paul and Donelle Ruwe), “Outside the Inside the Box: The 2013 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry” (with Michael Joseph and Donelle Ruwe) and New Directions in American Literary Scholarship: 1980-2002 (with Emory Elliott), and co-edited the symposium “Why Comics Are and Are Not Picture Books” (with Charles Hatfield) and the special issue of Pacific Coast Philology (volume 53, no. 2, Fall 2018) on “The Metafamily” (with Steven Gould Axelrod).

Degree

PhD in English

University of California, Riverside

MA in English

California State University, Los Angeles

BA in English

University of Southern California

Published Works

  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). A Good Book. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Aphorisms for the Reticent, Lazy, or Verbose. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Dactyls Are. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Dreaming of Abe Vigoda. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Heard Tell. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Motherhood. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Movable Punctuation. Cholla Needles,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). An Interview with Andrea Gogröf, Artist and Professor. Pacific Coast Philology,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2025). Lubitsch’s ‘Hidden Jewish Touch’: Jewish Anxieties and Gallic Desires. (pp 125-150). Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-refocus-the-historical-films-of-ernst-lubitsch.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2024). From Rebels to Emperors to Jedi Spirits: Walt Disney, George Lucas, and Their Fans. (pp 271-292). The University Press of Kentucky. https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813199399/lucas/
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "Bits Are". Cholla Needles, https://www.chollaneedles.com/2023/06/new-issue-cholla-needles-78.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "Father Never Lets". Cholla Needles, https://www.chollaneedles.com/2023/06/new-issue-cholla-needles-78.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "In the Eye of the Beholder". Cholla Needles, https://www.chollaneedles.com/2023/06/new-issue-cholla-needles-78.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "Searching for Linda Manz". Cholla Needles, https://www.chollaneedles.com/2023/06/new-issue-cholla-needles-78.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "Sentence". Cholla Needles, https://www.chollaneedles.com/2023/06/new-issue-cholla-needles-78.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "Contemporary Children's Poetry: A Colloquy". (pp 339-360). Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350062535
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2023). "From Shingled Hippo to Gay Unicorn: Self-Othering in Bob Kaufman and Other Beats". (pp 139-152). Bloomsbury Academic Handbook. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350062535
  • Svonkin, A. C., Axelrod, G. S. (2023). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry. (pp 544 pages). Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350062535
  • Svonkin, A. C., Axelrod, G. S. (2018). "Introduction: The Metafamily". Pacific Coast Philology (Pennsylvania State University Press), 53(2), 145-154. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/pacicoasphil.53.2.issue-1?fbclid=IwAR16csQw1R1WkvLGnTqQQe81eJM5iQVncJAO5RTKS_sOzzt37P97sQlIR2s.
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2018). "The Metafamily" Special Issue of Pacific Coast Philology. Pacific Coast Philology (Pennsylvania State University Press), www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/pacicoasphil.53.2.issue-1
  • Svonkin, A. C., Pendlebury, K., Paul, L. (2015). "A New Parliament of Fouls: The 2015 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry". The Lion & the Unicorn, 39(3), 311-351. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2015). "Postmodern Documentary: The Return of the Magus". (pp 162-179). McFarland.
  • Svonkin, A. C., Paul, L., Ruwe, D. (2014). "Old Guard→Avant-Garde→ Kindergarde: The 2014 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry". The Lion & the Unicorn, 38(3), 381-400. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2013). Study Guide for The Other Wes Moore. ,
  • Svonkin, A. C., Joseph, M., Ruwe, D. (2013). "Outside the Inside the Box: The 2013 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry". The Lion & the Unicorn, 37(3), 327-345. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2013). "Television: The Great Unifier". Kendall Hunt Publishing,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2012). "From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney". (pp 21-30). Scarecrow Press.
  • Svonkin, A. C., Hatfield, C. (2012). "Why Comics Are and Are Not Picture Books: Introduction". Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Johns Hopkins UP), 37(4), 429-435. .
  • Svonkin, A. C., Hatfield, C. (2012). Symposium: Why Comics Are and Are Not Picture Books. Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Johns Hopkins UP), https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/26427
  • Svonkin, A. C. (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. (pp 107-121). McFarland & Company Publishers.
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2011). "Missing a Beat: The Rants and Regrets of Seymour Krim". The Beat Review, www.beatstudies.org/reviews/vol5_issue3.html
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2011). "Muggles and Giants and House-elves, Oh My: Harry Potter, Liberalism, and the Problem of Evil". Research Digest, 6 (Special Issue), 31-35. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2010). "Manishevitz and Sake, the Kaddish and Sutras: Allen Ginsberg's Spiritual Self-Othering". College Literature, 37(4), 166-193. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2008). "From Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart: Becoming the Other; Suiciding the White Male Self". Pacific Coast Philology, 432-118. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2008). Self-Othering in American Literature and Culture from Melville to Moby. .
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Allen Ginsberg." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Cynthia Ozick." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Gertrude Stein." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Harold Bloom." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Lionel Trilling." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Michael Chabon." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2007). "Saul Bellow." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2006). "Bob Kaufman, Black Jew, and Allen Ginsberg, Jewish Buddhist: The Beats and Spiritual/Identity Transgression." In Beat Meets East: An Anthology of an International, Interdisciplinary Conference on the Age of Spontaneity. (pp 64-80). Sichuan University Press.
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2006). "Juan Delgado" In Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets & Poetry. Greenwood,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2006). "Mani Leyb." In Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets & Poetry. Greenwood,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2005). "If Only L.A. Had a Soul: Spirituality and Wonder at the Museum of Jurassic Technology". Crate: A Journal of Literary Borders and Boundaries, 1(1), 79-83. .
  • Svonkin, A. C., Elliott, E. (2004). New Directions in American Literary Scholarship: 1980-2002. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. State Department,
  • Svonkin, A. C. (2001). "Melville and the Bible: Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale, Multivocalism, & Plurality". Letterature D'America, 21(88/89), 53-73. .

Research Interests

American Literature; Children's Literature; American Film and Visual Culture

Teaching Interests

American Literature; Children's Literature and Culture; American Film and Visual Culture; Composition and Rhetoric; Critical Theory