Comparative and World Literature The College of Humanities

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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 spent the 2007-2008 academic year on a Presidential fellowship leave researching her book, 'In Light of Another´s Word': the Multi-voiced Ethnography of Medieval Europe.

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
  • CWL 800: Introduction to Graduate Study in Comparative Literature
  • CWL 815: Theory at the Border: Anthropology and Literature
  • CWL 820: Medieval Encounters
  • CWL 896: Directed Reading: Oral Exam
  • CWL 898: Masters Thesis

Publications

  • "The Look of Medieval Ethnography: William of Rubruck´s Mission to Mongolia," New Medieval Literatures, volume 10 (2008).
  • "Casting a 'Sideways Glance' at the Crusades: the Voice of the Other in Joinville´s Vie de Saint Louis", Forthcoming, Exemplaria: a Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, volume 22 (2010).
  • 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

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