María J. García Otero joined the Department of Modern Languages and the Croft Institute for International Studies in the fall of 2019 as Croft Instructional Associate 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.
Her research interests include Medieval and Early Modern Iberian hagiography, Religious Iconography and Monasticism, and Medieval Castilian Geopolitical Hegemony. Dr. Otero teaches language and literature courses at the intermediate and advanced levels. Within the Croft Institute, she is focused on developing an oral proficiency curriculum guided by the ACTFL standards. Dr. Otero is a certified Full ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview tester.
