Wendy Laura Belcher
Biographic Data
| ID | 1232118 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wendy Laura Belcher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wendy Laura |
| FAMILY NAME | Belcher |
| SIGNATURE | BELCHER W L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1734-4136 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Painting the Marvelous
The Life of Walatta-Petros
Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Text Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)
The earliest known book-length biography about an African woman, written in 1672 in the Gəˁəz language, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä eṭros, features a life-long partnership between two women and same-sex sexuality among nuns. Revered Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church leader Wälättä eṭros (1592–1642) and another nun, ∃ḫətä Krəstos, "lived together in mutual love, like soul and body" until death. Other nuns are depicted as "being l…
The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros
Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros
Sisters Debating the Jesuits
Many assume that African women did not play an intellectual or political role before the modern period. Taking advantage of rare sources in Portuguese, Latin, and Gəʿəz, this article analyzes European and African texts written in the 1600s about Ethiopian royal women who led their people in resisting Portuguese proto-colonialism. The texts display quite different perspectives on the women, but they agree that women participated in defeating this …
Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson
This title uncovers African influences on the Western imagination during the 18th century, paying particular attention to the ways Ethiopia inspired and shaped the work of Samuel Johnson.
Habesha Discourse and Johnson’s Rasselas
Why is Rasselas so strange? It is the argument of this chapter that this is so at least partly because of Samuel Johnson’s strange relationship with the literature about the Habesha. While, of course, Rasselas does appropriate and misrepresent the Habesha, it is also an instance of the power of Africandiscourse to co-constitute the representations of the English canon. In the previous chapters have explored loaned words and images from the Habesh…
Habesha Discourse and Johnson’s Oriental Tales
Johnson wrote many “oriental tales” over the same decade he wrote Rasselas, in the 1750s. Most appear to contain details that rise from Johnson’s reading about the Habasha. Some of the Habesha details in Johnson’s tales are mere geography or nomenclature, yet the amalgam of resemblances suggests a deep resonance, one informed by Habesha self-representations.
From Sheba They Come
From Sheba They Come:Medieval Ethiopian Myth, US Newspapers, and a Modern American Narrative Wendy Laura Belcher (bio) A growing body of research documents the connections between West African and American literatures.1 Henry Louis Gates's The Signifying Monkey locates the genesis of African American theories of signifyin(g) in West African rhetorical traditions; Keith Cartwright's Reading Africa into American Literature traces the philosophy of …
Consuming Subjects
Research Article| January 01 2009 Consuming Subjects: Theorizing New Models Of Agency For Literary Criticism In African Studies Wendy Laura Belcher Wendy Laura Belcher Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Literature Studies (2009) 46 (2): 213–232. https://doi.org/10.2307/25659714 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Wendy Laura Belcher; Consuming Subjects: Theorizing New Models…
Conjuring the Colonizer
s satiric upending of stereotypes about Native Americans, claiming that Alexie's work "uses stereotypes . . . of the . . . Indian, in new and entirely moral and ethical ways." 2 Other critics such as
Indirect Resistance
The nature of the encounter between colonized and colonizer has inspired tremendous debate. In the mid-twentieth century, as decolonization gained momentum, anthropologists and historians focused o
After the freedom
Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Text Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)
The earliest known book-length biography about an African woman, written in 1672 in the Gəˁəz language, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä eṭros, features a life-long partnership between two women and same-sex sexuality among nuns. Revered Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church leader Wälättä eṭros (1592–1642) and another nun, ∃ḫətä Krəstos, "lived together in mutual love, like soul and body" until death. Other nuns are depicted as "being l…
Sisters Debating the Jesuits
Many assume that African women did not play an intellectual or political role before the modern period. Taking advantage of rare sources in Portuguese, Latin, and Gəʿəz, this article analyzes European and African texts written in the 1600s about Ethiopian royal women who led their people in resisting Portuguese proto-colonialism. The texts display quite different perspectives on the women, but they agree that women participated in defeating this …
After the freedom
Conjuring the Colonizer
s satiric upending of stereotypes about Native Americans, claiming that Alexie's work "uses stereotypes . . . of the . . . Indian, in new and entirely moral and ethical ways." 2 Other critics such as
Indirect Resistance
The nature of the encounter between colonized and colonizer has inspired tremendous debate. In the mid-twentieth century, as decolonization gained momentum, anthropologists and historians focused o
Consuming Subjects
Research Article| January 01 2009 Consuming Subjects: Theorizing New Models Of Agency For Literary Criticism In African Studies Wendy Laura Belcher Wendy Laura Belcher Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Literature Studies (2009) 46 (2): 213–232. https://doi.org/10.2307/25659714 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Wendy Laura Belcher; Consuming Subjects: Theorizing New Models…
From Sheba They Come
From Sheba They Come:Medieval Ethiopian Myth, US Newspapers, and a Modern American Narrative Wendy Laura Belcher (bio) A growing body of research documents the connections between West African and American literatures.1 Henry Louis Gates's The Signifying Monkey locates the genesis of African American theories of signifyin(g) in West African rhetorical traditions; Keith Cartwright's Reading Africa into American Literature traces the philosophy of …
Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson
This title uncovers African influences on the Western imagination during the 18th century, paying particular attention to the ways Ethiopia inspired and shaped the work of Samuel Johnson.
Habesha Discourse and Johnson’s Rasselas
Why is Rasselas so strange? It is the argument of this chapter that this is so at least partly because of Samuel Johnson’s strange relationship with the literature about the Habesha. While, of course, Rasselas does appropriate and misrepresent the Habesha, it is also an instance of the power of Africandiscourse to co-constitute the representations of the English canon. In the previous chapters have explored loaned words and images from the Habesh…
Habesha Discourse and Johnson’s Oriental Tales
Johnson wrote many “oriental tales” over the same decade he wrote Rasselas, in the 1750s. Most appear to contain details that rise from Johnson’s reading about the Habasha. Some of the Habesha details in Johnson’s tales are mere geography or nomenclature, yet the amalgam of resemblances suggests a deep resonance, one informed by Habesha self-representations.
Sisters Debating the Jesuits
Many assume that African women did not play an intellectual or political role before the modern period. Taking advantage of rare sources in Portuguese, Latin, and Gəʿəz, this article analyzes European and African texts written in the 1600s about Ethiopian royal women who led their people in resisting Portuguese proto-colonialism. The texts display quite different perspectives on the women, but they agree that women participated in defeating this …
The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros
Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros
Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Text Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)
The earliest known book-length biography about an African woman, written in 1672 in the Gəˁəz language, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä eṭros, features a life-long partnership between two women and same-sex sexuality among nuns. Revered Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church leader Wälättä eṭros (1592–1642) and another nun, ∃ḫətä Krəstos, "lived together in mutual love, like soul and body" until death. Other nuns are depicted as "being l…
The Life of Walatta-Petros
Painting the Marvelous
Art (10 works) · Literature (9 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · African history and culture analysis (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (4 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · African history and culture studies (3 works)