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Latitudes: Wendy Belcher, "Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Saint"

  • Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

Fisher-Bennett Hall room 330


Professor Wendy Belcher from Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton will be joining us to give a talk entitled "Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Saint, Gädlä Wälättä Petros (1672)." Professor Belcher has been studying the 340-year-old manuscript of a biography of Wälättä Petros, who was canonized for her efforts to maintain the Ethiopian church and resist conversions to Roman Catholicism. Professor Belcher's discussion of same-sex love in this text is an important intervention in accounts of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the lives of women in this time. We are delighted to have her present to us this paper which is forthcoming in the fall.

Professor Belcher's talk will take place on Thursday, March 5 from 5:30-7 p.m. in Fisher-Bennett Hall room 330. Please note that there is no pre-circulated reading for this event. This event is generously co-sponsored by the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies program; the Gender and Sexuality Reading Group; and the Medieval-Renaissance Seminar.

We look forward to seeing many of you at the event!

Best,Brooke Stanley and Howie TamLatitudes Coordinators