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DIVISION OF LITERATURE AND LANGUAGES DIVISION SPEAKER WENDY BELCHER ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PRINCETON “Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Female Saint, Gädlä Wälättä P̣ eros (1672)” Thursday, April 23, 2015 4:30 p.m., Eliot 314 Abstract: The seventeenth-century Ethiopian book The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P ̣ eros (Gädlä Wälättä P ̣ eros) features a life-long partnership between two women and the depiction of same-sex sexuality among nuns. The earliest known book-length biography about the life of an African woman, written in 1672 in the Gˁz language, Gädlä Wälättä eros is an extraordinary account of early modern African women’s lives— full of vivid dialogue, heartbreak, and triumph. It features revered Ethiopian religious leader Wälättä P ̣ eros (1592-1642), who led a nonviolent movement against European proto-colonialism in Ethiopia in a successful fight to retain African Christian beliefs, for which she was elevated to sainthood in the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwado Church. An important part of the text is her friendship with another nun, Ǝḫtä Krstos, as they “lived together in mutual love, like soul and body” until death. Interpreting the women’s relationships in this Ethiopian text requires care, but queer theory provides useful warnings, framing, and interpretive tools. The talk emerges out of Prof. Belcher’s work with Michael Kleiner to translate the text, which will be published in 2015 by Princeton University Press as The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Translation of a Seventeenth-Century African Biography of an African Woman. Sponsored by the Division of Literature and Languages. Free and open to the public. 3203 SE WOODSTOCK BLVD | PORTLAND, OREGON 97202

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D I V I S I O N O F L I T E R A T U R E A N D L A N G U A G E S D I V I S I O N S P E A K E R

WENDY BELCHER ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PRINCETON

“Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Female Saint,

Gädlä Wälättä Peṭros (1672)”

Thursday, April 23, 2015 4:30 p.m., Eliot 314

Abstract: The seventeenth-century Ethiopian book The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä Peṭros (Gädlä Wälättä Peṭros) features a life-long partnership between two women and the depiction of same-sex sexuality among nuns. The earliest known book-length biography about the life of an African woman, written in 1672 in the Gəәˁəәz language, Gädlä Wälättä Ṗeṭros is an extraordinary account of early modern African women’s lives—full of vivid dialogue, heartbreak, and triumph. It features revered Ethiopian religious leader Wälättä Peṭros (1592-1642), who led a nonviolent movement against European proto-colonialism in Ethiopia in a successful fight to retain African Christian beliefs, for which she was elevated to sainthood in the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥəәdo Church. An important part of the text is her friendship with another nun, Ǝḫəәtä Krəәstos, as they “lived together in mutual love, like soul and body” until death. Interpreting the women’s relationships in this Ethiopian text requires care, but queer theory provides useful warnings, framing, and interpretive tools. The talk emerges out of Prof. Belcher’s work with Michael Kleiner to translate the text, which will be published in 2015 by Princeton University Press as The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Translation of a Seventeenth-Century African Biography of an African Woman.

Sponsored by the Division of Literature and Languages.

Free and open to the public.

3203 SE WOODSTOCK BLVD | PORTLAND, OREGON 97202