Assistant Professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico
About
Nahir Otaño Gracia is currently a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton thanks to a Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors. She is an Assistant Professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico. Recently, Nahir has taught courses such as "Intro to World Literature: On Hate and Restorative Justice" and "Medieval Romance and Race." She has also written several public essays such as “On hidden scars and the passive voice” (for the journal Pree. Caribbean. Writing, 5 [2020]) and “Lost in Our Field” which discuss the ways that medieval studies has begun to diversify the field and the ways it has fallen short. Nahir also helped create the Medieval Academy of America’s Belle Da Costa Greene award to be given annually to a medievalist of color for their research.
Current Work:
Otaño Gracia's theoretical frameworks include translation theory and practice, the global North Atlantic (Britain, Iberia, and Scandinavia), and critical identity studies. She has published a number of articles on literature from the Global North Atlantic, including “Borders and the Global North Atlantic" and “Towards a Decentered Global North Atlantic” (English Language Notes 2020 and Literature Compass 2019 respectively) “Presenting Kin(g)ship in Medieval Irish Literature” (Enarratio 2018), and “Vikings of the Round Table” (Comitatus 2016). She is working on her monograph, The Other Faces of Arthur: Medieval Arthurian Texts from the Global North Atlantic, and her co-edited volume Women’s Lives: Self-Representation, Reception, and Appropriation in the Middle Ages. The latter is under contract with the University of Wales Press.
Research Area Keyword(s):
medieval studies; global north atlantic; Arthurian literature; translation studies; critical identity studies