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Topic: Movies/Film/TV Streaming

Craig Svonkin

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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.

Vincent Piturro

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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.

Roberto Forns-Broggi

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Roberto Forns-Broggi, Ph.D., is a professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He was born in Lima, Peru and speaks Spanish fluently.

Forns-Broggi has been teaching at MSU Denver since 1998. He is the faculty chair for the Modern Language Department Committee. Forns-Broggi also taught at Universidad Nacionla de Cordoba in Cordoba, Argentina for 13 years.

His research interests include Latin American and Spanish literature, popular cultures, environmental philosophy, environmental spiritualties, film studies, world cinema, environmental literature, film media literacy, critical thinking and creativity. He has taught classes about intercultural communication through literature and film; literary and cultural theory; creative writing and children’s literature.

Forns-Broggi received his doctorate in Spanish language and literature from Arizona State University in 1995.

Christina Angel

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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.

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