María Otero

Croft Instructional Associate Professor of Spanish

Dr. Otero teaches language and literature courses at the intermediate and advanced levels, serves as reader for undergraduate theses, and mentors students within the Ole Miss Women’s Council Mentor Program. Additionally, within the Croft Institute, she serves as co-director of the Spanish language program, acts as a language advisor, and focuses on developing strategies to support an oral proficiency-based curriculum guided by the ACTFL standards.

Research Interests

Dr. Otero’s research interests include Medieval and Early Modern Iberian hagiography, Religious Iconography and Monasticism, Medieval Castilian Geopolitical Hegemony, Camino de Santiago, and Spanish Inquisition.

Biography

Dr. Otero joined the Department of Modern Languages and the Croft Institute for International Studies in the fall of 2019 as Croft Instructional Assistant Professor of Spanish and Co-Director of the Croft Spanish Language Program. She obtained her B.A in English Philology from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in 2004, her M.A. in Hispanic Literature and Cultures in 2006, and her Ph.D. in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Literature and Cultures in 2012 from the University of Kansas. Dr. Otero is a certified ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Tester, and she serves as ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Computer (OPIc) Rater, ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test (WPT) Rater, and ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) Rater for Language Testing International (LTI).

Education

Ph.D. Spanish, University of Kansas Main Campus (2012)