Assistant Professor

Medieval Studies

British and Irish Literary Studies

Research Areas

Medieval studies; Global North Atlantic; Translation Studies; Critical Identity Studies

Contact Information

Email: nahir@unm.edu 
Office Location: Humanities 343

Biography

Nahir Otaño Gracia is an Assistant Professor of English. Her theoretical frameworks include translation theory and practice, the global North Atlantic (Brittain, Iberia, and Scandinavia), and critical identity studies. She has published a number of articles on literature from the Global North Atlantic, including “Towards a Decentered Global North Atlantic” (Literature Compass 2019) “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.

Recently, Nahir has taught courses such as Intro to World Literature: On Hate and Restorative Justice and Medieval Romance and Race. Her courses tend to cluster canonical works of literature, transgressive literature by women of color, and materials from popular culture that students already know and welcome in order to help students decenter, dismantle, and recreate the canon.

Nahir is also an activist medievalist working to create a more inclusive medieval studies. The article “Constructing Prejudice in the Middle Ages and the Repercussions of Racism Today,” co-written with Daniel Armenti, appeared in Medieval Feminist Forum’s special issue on Microaggressions, Harassment, and Abuse—Medieval and Modern and her essays “Lost in Our Field” and “Welcome to a New Reality! Reflections on the Medieval Academy of America’s Panel” 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.