Jenn Zukowski-Boughn
Jenn Zukowski-Boughn, MFA, is an affiliate professor in the Department of Theatre at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Topic: Literature and Theatre
Craig Svonkin
Craig Svonkin, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His expertise is in amusement parks and children’s literature.
In addition to teaching, Svonkin is an executive director of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. He has quite a few publications including “A Southern California Boyhood in the Simu-Southland Shadows of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room” published in the Disneyland and Culture: Essays on the Parks and Their Influence journal and “From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney,” chapter 3 in Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology. Svonkin has also done many presentations including “Theorizing Multicultural and Multiethnic Children’s Fantasy” at the Children’s Literature Association Conference in 2008 and “Muggles & Giants & House-Elves, Oh My!: Harry Potter, Liberalism, and Evil” at the National Popular Culture Association Conference in 2003.
Svonkin is often called upon to share his expertise on pop culture topics related to amusement parks, Disney, Sesame Street and The Muppets. He is a member of Children’s Literature Association, Modern Language Association, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, Popular Culture Association and Oceanic Popular Culture Association. His research interests include American literature, children’s literature; and American film and visual culture.
Svonkin received his doctorate in English from University of California, Riverside in 2008, a masters in English from California State University, Los Angeles in 1997 and a bachelor’s in English from University of Southern California in 1986.
Renee Ruderman
Renee Ruderman teaches the Art and Craft of Writing, poetry and creative nonfiction writing workshops, poetry and memoir writing studios and the Senior Experience course, Advanced Writing. She has been a full-time faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver for over 30 years.
Ruderman has two books published: “Poems from the Room Below” and “Certain Losses,” a chapbook. Some of her award-winning poetry may be found in the Bellingham Review, I-70 Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and the Raleigh Review.
Vincent Piturro
Vincent Piturro, Ph.D., is a professor of film and media studies in the Department of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
He hosts an annual science fiction film series in conjunction with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Film Society. Piturro writes a film review column for The Front Porch, a neighborhood Denver paper with a circulation of about 30,000. In addition to teaching, he is also the general studies chair on the Faculty Senate Standing Committee at MSU Denver.
Piturro published several works including a book chapter on “The Ballad of Little Jo” in the edited collection of “Love in Western Film and Television,” an article in the International Academic Forum journal titled “Documentary Film Rhetoric: Saving Face and the Public Sphere” and a book chapter on gays in Westerns in the upcoming edited volume “The New Western.” His areas of research include Westerns, science fiction, documentaries, Italian cinema and Italian-American cinema.
Piturro received his doctorate in film studies from University of Colorado Denver in 2008.
Cristina Miguez Cruz
Born and educated in Uruguay, Cristina Miguez Cruz completed a B.A. in Letters in 1999, an M.A. in Literary Studies in 2002 in Venezuela and a doctorate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a focus on 20th Century Latin American Crime Narrative and Cinema in 2009.
Elizabeth Kleinfeld
Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of English and director of the Writing Center at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
She began her teaching career at Red Rocks Community College in 2001 where she worked as a writing center coordinator while also addressing writing curriculum, tutoring and composition.
Kleinfeld conducts research on academic rhetoric, composition pedagogy and theory, digital rhetoric, intellectual property, and multigenre and multimodal composition. She has co-authored two textbooks: “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric” and “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric and Reader.” Kleinfeld has also written numerous essays, peer-reviewed journal articles and edited handbooks. She has done many presentations at conferences and held work’shops. Kleinfeld is a member of: International Society for Humor Studies, Alliance for Computers and Writing, International Writing Centers Association, Colorado and Wyoming Writing Center Association and eLearning Consortium of Colorado.
Kleinfeld received her doctorate in English studies and master’s in English from Illinois State University and a bachelor’s in history from Bradley University.
Rebecca Gorman O’Neill
Rebecca Gorman O’Neill was born in Akron, Ohio. She started writing plays at Dartmouth college, where she earned her BA in Drama and English. When she won the Eleanor Frost Playwriting award her junior year, she was very relieved to have an excuse to stop acting. Rebecca went on to earn her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.
After working at Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and Glimmerglass Opera, she finally landed at the Denver Center Theatre Company, where she held titles ranging from Assistant Props Master, to Member of the Playwrights’ Unit, to “unofficial dramaturg.” She remains a member of the Higher Education Advisory Council for the DCTC.
Since 1994, Rebecca’s original plays have been produced in across the country and in Canada. Her plays “Tell-tale” and “The Greater Good” are available from Eldridge Publishing and Next Stage Press, respectively.
Currently (2015), her play “Mynx and Salvage” is part of the Edge Theatre’s “On Your Feet” development series, and her play “The Ghost of us” is being produced by Athena Project, both in Denver.
O’Neill is an professor of the English Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she serves as the teaching playwriting, screenwriting, cinema studies, and the graphic novel.
Christina Angel
English Lecturer Christina Angel is the convention director for Denver Comic Con, the nation’s fourth largest pop culture gathering. She also created and leads Page 23, DCC’s literary conference, and she serves on the board of directors of Pop Culture Classroom, a nonprofit, educational program designed to improve children’s literacy.
Angel’s extense teaching experience includes courses in literature (the classics, Old and Middle English texts, medieval, renaissance, mythology, children’s literature, and comics and graphic novels), rhetoric, pedagogy and film.