Faculty Bios & Scholarship

Personal Biography

JJ holds a B.A. in English from Saint John’s University (MN) and an M.A. in Rhetoric and Teaching Writing from the University of Colorado Denver. He lives in Arvada, CO.

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

Composition, Rhetorical Theory, Literacy

Research

Composition and Rhetorical Theory, Pedagogy, Discourses, Language and Identity, Gender, Popular Culture and Rhetoric

Personal Biography

I am a composition and rhetoric scholar who enjoys making my two fields accessible and relevant to scholars from all educational backgrounds.

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, rhetorical performance, student engagement & success

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

J. H. Taylor, PhD (Southern Illinois 1994)

A Mexican national (de Chihuahua) by birth and descent, I became a US citizen while in college. 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 Own 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. Four Levels of Meaning in the York Cycle of Mystery Plays: A Study in Medieval Allegory. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2006.

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. “Can Life Be Golden? – Gendered Duality in the Evolution of Consciousness.” The Owen Barfield Society. Oct. 2015

Taylor, J. H. and Leslie A. Taylor. “Participation Lost: Theatricality and Allegory on the Cusp of Modern Consciousness.” The Owen Barfield Society. Oct. 2014.

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

Teaching Interests/Philosophy

I teach a variety of courses that include ancient and medieval literature and the critical writing and analytic skills of textual studies. My goal is to help students acquire cultural knowledge, perspective, and skills that they can carry forth into an intellectually lively future.

ENG2000 Introduction to Textual Studies, English Department majors/minors

LING2011 Origins of English Words, General Studies/AHUM or English Department majors/minors

ENG2150 Legends of Troy, General Studies/AHUM or English Department majors/minors

​ENG2170 Medieval Mythologies, General Studies/AHUM & Global Diversity

ENG 3011 Analyzing English, English Department majors/minors & Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences

ENG3100 Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, English Department majors/minors

ENG3110 Studies in Early World Literature, English Department majors/minors

ENG3430 Classical Mythology, English Department majors/minors

ENG3440 Myth and Literature, English Department majors/minors

ENG3506 Academic Editing and Composition, English Department majors/minors

ENG411L Arthur and the Legends of the British Isles, English Department majors/minors

Current/Selected Projects

Global Medieval Contexts, 500 – 1500: Connections and Comparisons. Publisher: Taylor & Francis/Routledge, U.K., 2021. Co-authored with Dr. Kimberly Klimek of the MSU History Department, along with Dr. Sarah Secord-Davis, University of New Mexico and Dr. Bryan Keene, Riverside Community College and The J. Paul Getty Museum. Currently under contract for the second edition.

Spring 2018, published “Canterbury Trails: On the Road with Refugees, Pilgrims, and the Man of Law” in The Once and Future Classroom, Journal of the Consortium for Teaching Medieval Studies (TEAMS). The article recounts my experiences introducing Chaucer’s “Man of Law’s Tale” to readers outside of a traditional medieval literature classroom, especially recent immigrants and refugees. It is a project that proves the contemporary relevance of a “medieval” story.

Some recent presentations:
“Teaching (and Learning) the Global Middle Ages,” Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, Denver, (June 2021)

“Globetrotting with Tricksters,” Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, Denver, (July 2019)

Organized Plenary for Centers and Regional Associations. Working the the Middle: Writing the Global Medieval Textbook. Paper “Active African Gospel,.” Medieval Academy of America, University of Pennsylvania, (March 2019)

Symposium: Refuge, “At What Cost? — Contemporary Analogues to a Medieval Tale,” George Washington University Medieval and Early Modern Institute, Washington, D.C. (October 2016).

Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, “X-treme Sports: Crusades and Courtship in the Getty -Romance of Gillion de Trazegnies-,” University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. (June 2016).

International Piers Plowman Society Congress, “Workshop on Changes to the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive,” International Piers Plowman Society, University of Washington. (July 2015).

Higher Education Diversity Summit (HEDS), “Other People’s Children/Other People’s English: Teaching Toward Inclusive Excellence,” MSU: Office of Institutional Diversity, MSU. (April 10, 2015).

New Chaucer Society Biannual Congress, “Tabloid Tales: Chaucer Extorts Pious Princesses,” New Chaucer Society, Reykjavik, Iceland/University of Iceland. (July 17, 2014).