Assistant Professor, Hispanic Studies
Nagore Sedano Naveira is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies, affiliated faculty in the Gender and Queer Studies program, and member of the GQS advisory board. She holds a PhD in Romance Languages, and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oregon. She specializes in Memory Studies, Feminist Affect Theory, Spanish Civil War and Exile, Transatlantic Studies, and Iberian Cultural Studies.
Professor Sedano Naveira’s research is mainly concerned with the question of how contemporary societies grapple with the memory of a violent past. Her most recent article, “The Basque Libertador: Fin de Siècle Racial Thought and the Exile of 1939 in Latin America” (2025), offers a critical reading of the racial imaginary that informs the genealogy of libertadores imagined by the Basque nationalist exiles who fled to Venezuela after losing the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Her work on the politics of memory has also appeared in journals such as Hispanic Review, Revista Hispánica Moderna, Periphērica: Journal of Social, Cultural, and Literary History or Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades (Letras Femeninas).
In addition to her academic research, she has collaborated with the nonprofit ZEHAR-Errefuxiatuekin, the Basque branch of the Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiodo (CEAR), serving as a research consultant. As part of this collaboration, she contributed to the documentary film Norte Salvaje (2021), and the report Ayer también huimos (2021).
She is currently co-editing a volume on the Basque diaspora, and working on a book project that puts into conversation two historical memory projects: the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Spain’s colonial enterprise. Tentatively titled Duelos disidentes: los exilios femeninos de 1939 ante el legado colonial de España, the manuscript examines how the legacy of Spain’s colonial past shapes the exilic experiences of women who fled Spain after losing the Spanish Civil War in 1939—and the ways in which colonial frameworks continue to inform how we remember their stories today. Drawing on critical race studies, feminist affect theory, and peripheral nationalisms, Duelos disidentes shows how gender and race operate as tropes that bind together the overlapping (neo)colonial imaginaries that structure the exilic experiences of Spanish and Basque women refugees.
Professor Sedano Naveira also serves as faculty liaison for the USAC Bilbao and ILACA Granada study abroad programs. Students interested in learning more about these study abroad opportunities or the Hispanic Studies program are welcome to contact her at nsedanonaveira@pugetsound.edu.