Ronit Ricci BA (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), MA (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Ph.D (University of Michigan)

School of Culture, History & Language

Email: Ronit.Ricci@anu.edu.au

Biographical statement

I grew up in Jerusalem, where I earned BA and MA degrees in Indian Languages and Literatures and Psychology. I completed a Ph.D in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan in 2006 followed by postdoctoral fellowships at Columbia University and the Asia Research Institute, Singapore. I have a long standing interest in language study, translation, the roles stories play in human lives and comparative literary studies.

Research interests

Islamic literary cultures in south India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Javanese and Malay manuscript traditions, history of the book, translation studies, alphabet histories, conversion narratives, comparative literature, travel literature.

Ronit Ricci interviewed by the Sunday Times in Colombo about her Malay manuscripts project.

Key publications

• 2013. "Perfect Wedding, Penniless Life: Ali and Fatima in a Sri Lankan Malay Text." South Asian History and Culture DOI:10.1080/19472498.2013.768872.
• 2012. "The Discovery of Javanese Writing in a Sri Lankan Malay Manuscript." Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 168.4: 511-518.
• 2012. "Thresholds of Interpretation on the Threshold of Change: Paratexts in Late 19th-century Javanese Manuscripts," Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 3 (2012): 185-210.
• 2012. "Citing as a Site: Translation and Circulation in Muslim South and Southeast Asia." Modern Asian Studies 46.2: 331-353.
• 2011. Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia. University of Chicago Press.
• 2011. (co-edited with Jan van der Putten) Translation in Asia: Theories, Practices, Histories. Manchester: St. Jerome
• 2011. "Remembering Java's Islamization: A View from Sri Lanka". Asia Research Institute Working Papers Series, No. 153.
• 2010. "The Ambiguous Figure of the Jew in Javanese Literature." Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 38 No. 112: 403-417.
• 2010. "On the Untranslatability of 'Translation': Considerations from Java, Indonesia." Translation Studies 3.3: 287-301.
• 2010. "Islamic Literary Networks in South and Southeast Asia." Journal of Islamic Studies 21.1: 1-28.
• 2009 (ed. Barbara Metcalf). "Saving Tamil Muslims from the Torments of Hell: Vannapparimalappulavar's Ayira Macala". Islam in South Asia in Practice pp187-200. Princeton University Press.
• 2009 (ed. R. Michael Feener and Terenjit Sevea). "From Jewish Disciple to Muslim Guru: On Literary and Religious Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Java". Islamic Connections. Studies of South and Southeast Asia pp68-85. Institute for Southeast Asian Studies.
• 2008. "A Jew on Java, a Tamil Torah Scholar and a Model Malay Rabbi: Representations of Abdullah Ibnu Salam in the 'Book of One Thousand Questions.'"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 18.4 pp481-495.
• 2008 (with Alton L. Becker). "What Happens When You Really Listen: On Translating the Old Javanese Ramayana; Ramayana Kakawin, Translation and Essay". Indonesia 85 pp1-30.
• 2000. Sipuro shel ets hatamarhindi. A modern Tamil novel by Sundara Ramaswamy, translated from Tamil into Hebrew. Hakibbutz Hame'uchad.