Research Graduate Assistant; Second author of OER Book Early World Literature: A Restorative Justice Approach 

Averie Basch is a second-year doctoral student at the University of New Mexico pursuing a degree in Medieval Studies. She focuses on Arthuriana, Celtic mythology, and Otherworlds. She takes great interest in the how Arthurian literature reveals interactions between the Christianized North Atlantic and the Celtic fringe and how the Pre-Christian traditions survived in converted communities through storytelling. Much of her work assesses how the liminal spaces portrayed through the literature reflect borderlands in geographic and cultural contexts. 

Nahir I. Otaño Gracia 

Assistant Professor of English; First author of OER Book Early World Literature: A Restorative Justice Approach 

Nahir Otaño Gracia is an Assistant Professor of English. Her theoretical frameworks include translation theory and practice, the global North Atlantic (Britain, Iberia, and Scandinavia), and critical identity studies. She has published a number of essays as well as the book The Other Faces of Arthur: Chivalric Whiteness in the Global North Atlantic with Penn Press (April 2025). Her co-edited volume of essays, Women’s Lives: Self-Representation, Reception, and Appropriation in the Middle Ages, was published in 2023. 

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. 

Elizabeth Zavala 

PhD student and Instructor of Spanish 

Elizabeth A. Zavala was born in Bakersfield, California, but she grew up in a small village in Guanajuato Mexico. She received her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and her master's Degree in Hispanic linguistics at New Mexico State University (NMSU). She is currently a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Nuevo Mexico (UNM). She is the assistant coordinator for the Spanish as a Heritage Language program and as a teacher's assistant (TA). Her research interests focus on investigating the Spanish language changes in society. For her dissertation, she will investigate the linguistic and social changes of agricultural workers in Hatch, NM. She plans to give visibility to these people and their stories.

Brisa del Bosque 

PhD student and Instructor of Spanish 

Brisa del Bosque is a first-year doctoral student in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She is a graduate of Tec de Monterrey (ITESM) in her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico. She studied British Literature at the University of Cambridge, England, and earned her Master's degree in Spanish at New Mexico State University. Brisa has worked as a trainer for bilingual teachers in Mexico and the United States. She is also the founder of several Spanish as a Heritage Language programs in Denver, Colorado, and she has developed bilingual curriculum K-12th. Brisa is an instructor and supervisor of SHL (Spanish as a Heritage Language) at UNM, where she has taught levels 1, 2, and 3 and is currently developing the online level 2 of SHL, as well as producing online resources for SHL. She has conducted research on pronunciation attitudes in Monterrey, Mexico; teaching practices in Spanish classes in the United States; teaching Spanish as a heritage language; and Spanish variation. Her passion is to promote the teaching and use of Spanish in the United States, so that the Spanish language is not lost in this country.

Damián Vergara Wilson 

Professor 

Damián Vergara Wilson is a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese where he directs the Spanish as a Heritage Language program. His project involves contributions from multiple graduate students including Brisa del Bosque, Elizabeth Zavala, Jorge Hernández and María Domínguez in their project Heritage Spanish. While OERs are valuable for educators in all fields, they hold a particular importance in the teaching of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL). One of the main goals of teaching SHL is to provide a meaningful educational experience for students who come from communities where Spanish is historically part of the social fabric. Often, these communities experience intergenerational language loss as English becomes the main language. Language loss is frequently connected to larger societal forces that convey messages and ideologies that the heritage language is not worth preserving. Therefore, teaching SHL requires educators to confront these factors in helping students to understand their own sociolinguistic circumstances. One of the problems, however, is that commercially available textbooks often fail to address these sociolinguistic issues and frequently buttress negative attitudes that students might hold toward their heritage language. On one hand, this is a problem, but on the other, it invites educators to create materials that both teach the language and address these sociolinguistic issues. He hopes that his OER reaches these goals.