Nina Hagel is a political theorist and an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. She teaches classes on contemporary political theory, the history of political thought, and feminist political theory. Her research examines questions of freedom, recognition, social power, and resistance, with a focus on democratic belonging. She is currently working on a book manuscript about notions of authenticity in contemporary political discourse and in the history of political thought. Her work has been published in Polity and theory & event and has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In 2018, her article "Alternative Authenticities: Thinking Transgender Without Essence" received the American Political Science Association's Susan Okin-Iris Young Award in feminist political theory.