Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Saint, Gädlä Wälättä Petros (1672)

Talk by Professor Wendy Belcher from Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. 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.

LINK: https://www.english.upenn.edu/events/2015/03/05/latitudes-wendy-belcher-same-sex-intimacies-early-modern-african-text-about