01 / Characters · 06 of 07
Nira Cain-N'Degeocello
A gender-studies lecturer from Portland, cycling across America to heal the divide by listening to people he disagrees with.
2018
02 / Who he is
Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello is a gender-studies lecturer from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, a Democratic activist on a bicycle tour to heal the divide by listening to people he disagrees with. He was made for Who Is America?, the 2018 Showtime series, and is the character closest to a portrait of a certain kind of liberal: earnest, apologetic, exhausting. Reed College confirmed that no such lecturer exists. Nira eats dinner with Trump delegates in South Carolina, pitches a giant mosque to a town hall in Kingman, Arizona, and enters an Atlanta rap battle, and each room shows what it thinks.
Character file
Healing the divide: an introduction
- Full name
- Dr. Nira Cain-N'Degeocello
- Nationality
- American
- Occupation
- Lecturer in gender studies at Reed College, Portland, Oregon; co-principal of Wildfields Poly-Ed; Democratic activist
- Partner
- Naomi
- Pronouns
- Ask first
- Children
- Harvey Milk, Malala
03 / The reel
Best of Nira Cain-N'Degeocello
What people will say about Muslims, race and the other side when the person asking seems too well-meaning to object, and how easily a certain kind of liberal makes it worse.
Clip, 2018, SHOWTIME
Nira Cain-N'Degeocello enters an Atlanta rap battle
An Atlanta rap battle, entered in a cardigan, in Showtime's own clip.
Clip, 2018, SHOWTIME
If You Missed Who Is America? (recap)
Showtime's fifty-second recap of the series.
- On YouTube, fromNew York Magazine
Clip, 2018, New York Magazine
The 7 Most Damning Appearances on Who Is America? (New York Magazine)
New York Magazine's round-up of the series, including the Kingman, Arizona town hall.
04 / Where he appeared
Where he appeared
- 2018Who Is America?Showtime, seven episodes
05 / On the record
Notable moments
Reed College confirms there is no Professor Nira Cain after the first episode airs, July 15, 2018.
Dinner in Aiken, South Carolina with Jane Page Thompson, a Trump delegate at the 2016 convention, and her husband Mark.
A town hall in Kingman, Arizona hears a proposal for the largest mosque outside the Middle East.
Atlanta rapper Ness Lee on being drawn into a rap battle with a Reed College lecturer.
Portland's Willamette Week on the city's least likely new export.
06 / Honours
Awards and accolades
Who Is America? brought two Primetime Emmy nominations in 2019, for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and for Directing, and a Golden Globe nomination for Sacha as Best Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy.