March 11, 2025

Expert in South Asian literature to speak at SVSU

Christi A. Merrill, an expert in South Asian literature and postcolonial theory, will present a lecture exploring our relationship to text and image across language and culture. The event will take place on Thursday, March 20, at 6 p.m. in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall at SVSU. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In her lecture, Merrill will draw upon various versions of “The Twenty-five Tales of Vikram and the Vetala,” a collection of stories in which the vetala — a mischievous spirit in Indian lore — uses riddling stories to manipulate brave kings.

Merrill is a professor of South Asian literature and postcolonial theory and an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan. She holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature, as well as MFAs in nonfiction writing and translation, all from the University of Iowa. Her teaching and research combine the theory and practice of translation, and the focus of her work is primarily on contemporary Indian literature.

Merrill’s translations of Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, “Chouboli and Other Stories,” were supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, co-published in 2010 by Katha (New Delhi) and Fordham University Press, and won the 2012 A.K. Ramanujan Award for translation from the Association of Asian Studies. Merrill is the author of “Riddles of Belonging: India in Translation and other Tales of Possession” (Fordham 2009). She is currently writing a book on Dalit literature, “Genres of Real Life: Mediating Stories of Injustice across Languages.”

Merrill’s lecture is part of the William and Julia Edwards Lecture in Philosophy and Religion program at SVSU, a forum where recognized scholars in philosophy and religion are invited to share their work with the campus community.