Christopher F. Givan, known as "Kit," graduated High School from the American School of Manila, in the Philippines. He earned a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Stanford. At Yale, he was a Scholar of the House in creative writing and won a prize for an unpublished novel written during his senior year. At Stanford, he completed a doctoral thesis on "The Use of Analogy in Shakespeare," a study which examined the multiplot and recurring patterns of imagery in four plays: Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, MacBeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.
After Stanford, Givan began teaching as an assistant professor at University of California, Santa Barbara where he taught from 1970 to 1976. He then accepted a Senior Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature to the University of Bucharest in Bucharest, Romania, where he taught for two years. In 1978, he accepted a position at the University of Puerto, Mayaguez, but a year later moved over to the graduate campus in Rio Piedras. In l980, he taught as a lecturer at UCLA in the Writing Programs Department also teaching writing in the MBA program.
In l981, Givan became Dean of Franklin College, an American college, in Lugano, Switzerland. The following year, he became Dean of Academic Affairs at The American College of Switzerland in Leysin, Switzerland. In l983, he accepted a post as assistant professor in the Department of English at Eastern New Mexico State University at Portales, N.M. In l985, he was appointed Dean of Morse College at Yale University and Lecturer in the English Department at Yale. In 1986, Givan accepted the position of Chair, Department of Creative Studies at UCO. In l988, he was promoted to the rank of full professor with tenure at UCO. In 1992, Givan won a second Senior Fulbright Lectureship and taught for a year at the University of Hong Kong in the Dept of Comparative Literature. He was in Hong Kong for a year and this was also on sabbatical from UCO. When the Creative Studies Department was merged into the English Department, Givan became a professor in the
Department of English.In 1999-2000, Givan won a third Fulbright Senior Lectureship in American Literature and taught for year in Madagascar at the University of Antananarivo. He has published essays on Shakespeare, J. D. Salinger, John Updike, and Nabokov as well as poetry and short stories. He continues to teach Shakespeare, Chaucer, 18th Century Literature, 19th and 20th Century American Literature, and various courses in creative writing including: poetry, short story, satire and comedy.
