Jamie Keener

Jamie Keener is a Lecturer and PhD Candidate in Literary and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, affiliated with the Department of English within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She holds an MA in English (2021) from UIUC and a BA in English Language and Literature (2017) from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on medieval texts through the lenses of race, gender, and non/human relationality, with specialties in Middle English literature and premodern critical race studies.

Keener has been recognized as an excellent instructor, earning the 'List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent' award four times (2020–2023), and received the Martha W. and Richard Melman Fellowship (2019–2020). She actively contributes to academic communities through roles in the Medieval Studies Program, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, and co-organizes the Medieval Movie Knights group.

Her recent scholarship explores racialization in medieval texts like Sir Gowther and Sir Orfeo, and she has published in edited volumes such as Seeing Race Before Race (2023), which won the 2024 PROSE Award. Her teaching spans medieval literature, writing pedagogy, and business communication courses.