Can one woman in disguise unite a spiritually divided nation? Meet Tobbya, defiant founder of an Ethiopian Empire

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Paige Harris for winning the award! Who was Afewark Gebre Iyasus? Born in 1868, Afewark was religiously educated before his introduction to the Ethiopian political sphere. He …

Modernity and the West : How Ideas Travel

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Tyfene Jelstrup for winning the award! What good has western imperialism done for the world? I asked this question to an acquaintance after she suggested I …

Rethinking modernity and cultural authenticity

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Tonje Beisland for winning the award! Who can claim ownership of modernity? Today, we see clearly the global impact of the technological, social and scientific progresses …

Seeking good faith: Afäwärq Gäbrä-Iyyäsus and his novel Ṭobbya or Ləbb Wälläd Tarik (1908) – a story born from the heart

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Nina Hanna for winning the award! If writing that was used to teach English grammar had made up the foundational texts of English literature then no …

Afäwärḳ Gäbrä-Iyyäsus’s Tobbaya: The Girl Whose Stubborn Faith Helped Unite Ethiopia

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Molly Spears for winning the award! Have you ever read a novel originally written in Amharic? Have you ever consumed any fiction about nation-building in an …