Dr. Cristián H. Ricci is a Professor of Iberian Studies and North African Studies at the University of California, Merced.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating Magna Cum Laude from California State University Los Angeles in 1998. He earned his Master of Arts in 2000 and his doctorate in 2003 from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
His literary research interests and experience include the narrative of Spain, the literature of Morocco written in Western European languages (Castilian, Catalan, French, Dutch, English); and the literatures of Equatorial Guinea and Latin America from 1800 through the present.
His first book is entitled El espacio urbano en la narrativa del Madrid de la Edad de Plata, 1900-1938 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/CSIC, 2009). His second scholarly book is entitled Literatura periférica en castellano y catalán: el caso marroquí (Madrid-Minneapolis: Biblioteca Clásica- U of Minnesota, 2010). His third scholarly book is entitled ¡Hay moros en la costa! Literatura mararroquí fronteriza en castellano y catalán (Madrid: Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2014). He completed an anthology of Moroccan writers of Castilian expression entitled Letras Marruecas. Antología de escritores magrebíes en castellano (Madrid: Biblioteca Clásica, 2012), and anthology of Moroccan writer Mohamed Lahchiri, El examen y otros cuentos (Córdoba, Argentina: Alción Editora, 2015). As a result of his research under the NEH Faculty Award, he wrote his fourth scholarly book entitled New Voices of Muslim North African Migrants in Europe, under contract with Brill.
He is the author of more than thirty articles on Spanish literature from Modernismo to the Civil War, Maghribi and Subsahan literature in European languages in journals such as Hispania. A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese, Revista Iberoamericana, Letras Peninsulares, España Contemporánea, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Afro-Hispanic Review, Chasqui, Hispanófila and Hispanic Issues.
He co-edited two anthologies, one on Argentine literature of the XXI Century (¡Dale nomás! ¡Dale que va! Ensayos testimoniales para la Argentina del siglo XXI. Buenos Aires: Nueva Generación, 2006), and the other one on Israeli and Arabic writers of Castilian expression (Caminos para la paz. Escritores israelíes y árabes en castellano. Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2007).
He is the codirector with Dr. Ignacio López-Calvo of Transmodernity. Journal of Peripheral cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, and he serves in the Editorial Board of Magriberia(University of Fès) and Ventana Abierta (USA).
Dr. Ricci has received several awards and scholarships. Among the most prestigious is the National Endowment for the Humanities-Faculty Award 2013-2014, an award that is given to eight scholars among two thousand applicants. His project is entitled, “Moroccan Literature and the Broadening of Postcolonial Literary Studies.” Among other awards and scholarships, Dr. Ricci has received the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Summer Research Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), and several grants from the University de California, Spain’s Ministry of Culture, and The University of California Academic Senate Distinguished Early Career Research Award.
He has also been invited to speak about Iberian and Moroccan literature from several universities in North America– Yale, University of Texas at Austin, British Columbia, University of California-Irvine, University of Houston, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, CSU Los Angeles and Whittier College – as well as in Spain, at the University of Cadiz, University of Alcalá de Henares, University of León, the University of Vic, the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), and the Autonomous University of Madrid; Morocco, at the University of Tétouan, the University of Rabat, the University of Fès, the University of Agadir, and the University of Nador; as well as at the Latin American Association of Asian and African Studies in Buenos Aires (ALADAA), and the University Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago, Chile.
He was the Vice Chair of the Divisional Council at UC Merced in 2014-2015, and the Chair of the Senate in 2015-2016.
He was appointed Director of the University of California Education Abroad Program in Chile-Argentina, 2016-2019.