Queens, Saints, and Warriors: Women and/in Power in Christian Ethiopian History

Catalog description

The history of women and/in power is often constructed as a recent history, centered in the West. But what about the history of women and/in power in Africa? This course examines the history of women and/in power in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia from the medieval to the early-modern period, roughly the 10th to the 18th century. This will be accomplished by examining the historical records, oral traditions and legends of queens, saints and warriors in mainly Christian Ethiopia. Issues to be discussed include: the perception of women in Ethiopian historiography; Archetypes or models for women’s roles in Ethiopia; the perception of powerful women in Ethiopian historiography; religion and women’s access to power; women and education; women and the law; and more. The geographic range of the course extends beyond the borders of Ethiopia and engages historical polities that existed throughout the entire Horn of Africa region. Readings for this course, are from a variety of primary and secondary sources translated from Ge’ez, Amharic, Portuguese, Arabic, and include Gälawdewos’ The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman, Francisco Álvares’ The Prester John of the Indies, Sergew Hable-Selassie’s “The Ge’ez letters of Queen Eleni and Libne Dingil to John, King of Portugal,” and more. By the end of the course students will be able to discuss and critically examine these sources and engage the history of women in/and power in Ethiopia into broader discussions in African and global history.