African Humanities Folkloric Project: Written Medieval Stories on Healing and Justice from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia

FAIN: RQ-279892-21

Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)
Wendy Belcher (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

Preparation for digital publication of 180 African Marian stories preserved in parchment manuscripts, which will be catalogued, transcribed and translated from Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic) into English. (36 months)

The African Humanities Folkloric project (AHF) will provide students and scholars with web and print access to hundreds of vivid stories written for centuries in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia about the miracles that the Virgin Mary performed for the faithful, whether sinners or saints. By increasing U.S. access to short, meaningful African narratives about healing, reparative justice, and personal ethics in a violent world, the AHF project is part of ensuring that the humanities in the United States is founded on a truly global canon. The NEH Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations Grant would fund the labor of experienced researchers with rare language skills to catalog stories in parchment manuscripts, translate dozens of stories into English, and write short introductions to them. The project will begin October 2021 and end 36 months later, in September 2024.