Shirin A. Khanmohamadi
Assistant Professor
Comparative and World Literature
San Francisco State University
Biography
Shirin A. Khanmohamadi (B.A. Brown, 1991; Ph.D. Columbia, 2005) is an Assistant Professor in the Comparative and World Literature department at San Francisco State University, where she specializes in comparative medieval European literature, premodern travel and ethnographic writing, cross-cultural and confessional representation within medieval literature, and literary cross-fertilization between the medieval European and Islamic worlds. She has recently published or forthcoming work in New Medieval Literatures, Exemplaria, and Arthuriana. She is currently completing a book-length study of premodern ethnographic poetics, 'In Light of Another´s Word': writing ethnography before the gaze.
Teaching and Research Interests
Comparative Medieval Literary Study; Premodern Travel and Ethnographic literature; Medieval Europe and the Islamic world; Medieval Tale Collections (1001 Nights, Decameron, Canterbury Tales); Epic and Romance.
Teaching at SFSU
- CWL 230: World Literature
- CWL 250: Fables and Tales
- CWL 420: Travel and the Literary Imagination
- CWL 423: Comparative Medieval European Literature
- CWL 421: Celtic Literature
- CWL 424: The Multicultural Middle Ages
- ENG 501: The Age of Chaucer
- ENG 690: Senior Seminar: Chaucer
- CWL 800: Introduction to Graduate Study in Comparative Literature
- CWL 815: Theory at the Border: Anthropology and Literature
- CWL 820: Medieval Encounters
- CWL 825: Advanced Study in Comparative Literature
- CWL 896: Directed Reading: Oral Exam
- CWL 898: Masters Thesis
Publications
- “Salvage Anthropology and Displaced Mourning in the Lais of Marie de France”, Arthuriana 21.3 (2011): 49-69.
- "The Look of Medieval Ethnography: William of Rubruck´s Mission to Mongolia," New Medieval Literatures 10 (2008): 87-114.
- "Casting a 'Sideways Glance' at the Crusades: the Voice of the Other in Joinville´s Vie de Saint Louis", Exemplaria: a Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22.3 (2010): 177-99.
- Review of The New Concise History of the Crusades: Updated Student Edition by Thomas F. Madden, The Medieval Review 07.10.31, October, 2007.
Recent Honors
- San Francisco State University Presidential Award, Research Leave, 2007/2008.
- San Francisco State University Vice-President´s Award, Spring 2006.
- San Francisco State University Affirmative Action Award, Spring 2005.
- Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship/ The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 2003-2004.
Last Update: 7-16-2008
