Graduate Teaching Assistant, Ph.D. Candidate

About

  • Find Me On:

    linkedin

  • Website:

    Heartbeat Horror

  • Role:

    Graduate Student

  • Position:

    • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Ph.D. Candidate

  • Concentration:

    • Film and Media Studies

  • Department:

    • Communication Studies

  • Education:

    • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Media Studies, 2021
    • Gonzaga University, Communication Studies, 2018

Biography

Riana Slyter is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Film and Media Studies at Colorado State University. Her research explores haunted attractions as immersive entertainment spaces, examining consumers’ and producers’ relationship with horror and everyday life. She critically analyzes a wide spectrum of haunts, from local pumpkin patches and amateur haunted woods to multi-million-dollar theme park productions, scrutinizing monstrous representations through queer and feminist lenses. Her forthcoming research in Horror Studies and in the edited volume titled Fright Nights: Live Horror Events examines the representations and performance of monstrosities through gender, race, disability, and horror tropes. Drawing from curating MoPOP's “Scared to Death” exhibit and industry experience in the haunt industry, her interdisciplinary approach combines critical analysis with hands-on insights, expanding perspectives on the horror genre and media entertainment.

Publications

Slyter, Riana, and David Scott Diffrient. “Hermeneutics, Homiletics and Horror TV: Reading Midnight Mass through a ‘Wordy’ Liturgical Lens.” Horror Studies 15, no. 2: 129–52. https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00085_1.

Slyter, Riana. “New Queer Horror Film and Television et. by Darren Elliott-Smith and John Edgar Browning (review).” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 10, no. 1 (2023): pp. 214 – 217.

Slyter, Riana. “Poetic Operations: Trans of Color Art in Digital Media.” Women’s Studies in Communication 46, no. 1 (2023): 114–16.

Slyter, Riana. “Midsommar. Dir. Ari Aster. Screenplay by Ari Aster. Perf. Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, and Vilhelm Blomgren. A24, 2019.” Midwest PCA/ACA 8, no. 1 (2020): 226–27.

Courses

  • SPCM 100 Communication and Popular Culture

    Survey of media studies approaches to understanding popular culture.

  • HONR 495 Website Communication

    Promote Honors@CSU sharing comprehensive information while maintaining brand identity and accessibility standards.

  • SPCM 358B Gender and Genre in Film: Horror

    An in-depth study of classical and contemporary horror films produced in the United States and around the world, with attention given to their representations of gender and intersectional identity.

  • SPCM 453 Global Media Cultures

    How media and globalization influence each other.

  • SPCM 200 Public Speaking

    Fundamentals of public speaking emphasizing content, organization, delivery, audience response.