Associate Professor
Room No: HSB 241B
Tel: +91 44 2257 4524
E-Mail: merin@iitm.ac.in

Education:

• PhD, IIT Bombay (2013): “Literary Historiography of Indian English Fiction: A Critical Examination”
  (Received the Institute Award for Best Thesis)
• MPhil, CIEFL Hyderabad (2005): “Caste and Power: A Study of Selected Works of Prose and Fiction”
  MA, CIEFL Hyderabad (2003)
• BA, Mar Ivanios College, University of Kerala (2001)

​Courses taught at IIT Madras:

• History of English Language and Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Indian Fiction in English
• World Literature
• English Advanced Level
• Feminist Writings

​Courses offered through NPTEL:

• History of English Language and Literature
• Postmodernism in Literature
• Introduction to World Literature
• Indian Fiction in English

​MA Projects guided:

• 2015: Surej Simon. “Off Beat”: Women and Beat Generation
• 2016: Kevin Fernandes. Constructing the Modern Iran Society Using Iranian English Writings
• 2016: Asmita Ghosh. Reimagining Sita and Surpanakha: A Postcolonial Feminist Analysis
• 2018: Lekshmy U K. Gender and Post-Restoration Coffee Houses in England
• 2018: Merrin Alice Abraham. Women in Pentecostal Churches.

PhD guidance:

• Sruthi Vinayan (2019 completed)
• Anitha Iris
• Rashi Srivastava (Co-guided by Dr Avishek Parui)
• Catherine Shilpa X

​Projects: 

• 2014-2016: Seed Grant (Rs.500000) sponsored by IC&SR IIT Madras. A Social History of Reading in Kerala
• 2014-2015: New Faculty Initiation Grant sponsored (Rs.500000) by IC&SR IIT Madras. Literary historiography studies in India.
• 2016-2018: Exploratory Research Project (Rs.1000000)  awarded by IC&SR IIT Madras. A transnational narrative history of the Anglo-Indian community in India and the Diaspora.

​Affiliations and Collaborations:

• Anglo-Ink, Chennai (2017 onwards)
• New Zealand India Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2017-2018)

​Publications:

1. The politics of representation and the “ideal Malayalee woman”: Remembering Malayalam women’s magazines of the early 20th-century Kerala, South India. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Taylor and Francis. Volume 55, 2019. Pages 399-411. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2019.1570966
2. Caste in Indian English Fiction. EPW, Vol. 50, Issue No. 21, 23 May, 2015.
3. “Re-drawing the Postmodern Lines: Rushdie and Indian English Fiction in the Post-1980s”, Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies (Vol.4, No.3, 2013).
4. “Revisiting Nationalist Historiography: Reading Amin’s Narrativisation of Chauri Chaura” in Postcolonial Text (Vol 6, No.4, 2011).
5. “(Re)Writing IE fiction in a New YA Page: Celebrating the Birth of the Reader and the Publisher” in Muse India (Issue 39, Sep-Oct 2011).
6. “Caste and Modernity: Locating Phule’s Discourse” in 19th Century Maharashtra: A Reassessment ed. Shraddha Kumbojkar. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
7. “Articulations of Caste in Nationalist Historiography” in The Journal of the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU (Autumn 2009).
8. “Softskills and Syllabus: The Need for Convergence” in Indian Journal of Open Learning (Vol.17, No.2, May 2008).
9. “Articulating Caste: Gaps and Silences in Social/Nationalist Historiography” in Littcrit (Vol/34, No.1, June 2008).
10. “Reading Written on the Body: Problematising Gender, Identity and Sexuality” in The New Frontier, University of Kerala (May 2008).

Forthcoming:

• 2020: Understanding Anglo-Indian Identity. Co-edited with Robyn Andrews.

​Research Interests:

• Literary Historiography Studies
• Indian and Postcolonial Writings
• Anglo-Indian Studies
• Kerala Modernity

​Conferences Organized:

• October 2019: Event, Memory and Re-membering: One Hundred Years of Jallianwalla Bagh (forthcoming). Co-convened with Dr Avishek Parui
• August 2018: Second International Conference on Anglo-Indian Studies. Co-convened with Dr Robyn Andrews
• August 2017: First International Conference on Anglo-Indian Studies. Co-convened with Dr Robyn Andrews

​Administrative responsibilities:

• MA Project Coordinator, HSS Dept (2015, 2017, 2018).
• Dept Graduate Conference Committee (2017, 2018).

Others:

• June 2018: Attended Summer School on Digital Humanities at University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
• 2018 onwards: Member, Editorial Board, International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies.