Shirin Khanmohamadi

Shirin A. Khanmohamadi is Professor of Comparative Literature at San Francisco State University, where she specializes in comparative medieval literatures, premodern travel and ethnographic writing, and literary and cultural contact between the medieval European and Islamic worlds. Her articles have appeared in postmedieval, Digital Philology, New Medieval Literatures, Exemplaria, and Arthuriana (see https://sfsu.academia.edu/ShirinKhanmohamadi). 

Her first book, In Light of Another’s Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press Middle Ages Series, 2014), examined the dialogic and inter-subjective form of Europe’s earliest ethnographic writing. Her current book project (tentatively, Splendorous Saracens: Appropriating Islamicate Prestige in Medieval European Literature) aims to rethink the role of Muslims in medieval European narratives--including chronicles, epics and travel writing-- beyond the default “crusading” frame into which they are usually cast, arguing instead for Europe’s emulation and appropriation of Islamicate imperial prestige in its earliest imperial expression.  Her research is supported by an NEH Awards for Faculty grant in 2022-2023.  She currently serves as an Editor at Exemplaria: Medieval / Early Modern / Theory.