Join MIT Global Studies and Languages and History for the final Brown Bag Lunch Series: informal presentations on current research by faculty, lecturers, post-docs, and visiting scholars with lunch provided.

“Asma’s Vision of Ethiopia”
Speaker: Bekalu Kifle, GSL Pre-doctoral Fellow

The History of the Galla and the Kingdom of Shoa was written by Asma Giyorgis between 1910 and the author’s death in 1915. Kifle considers this work as a departure from the age-old tradition of recording the past (chronicle and hagiographical writings). At the start of the 20th Century Ethiopian history came to be written in a linear mode. Kifle explores how the author engaged in source criticism characterized by unsparing critique of former generations of historians; how he set up his periodization and temporal focus for the manuscript; and how he attended to such questions as: Who constitutes the national subject? Which groups, which races, which regions, which classes make the nation and which do not?

Lunch will be served from 12:30 pm. RSVP by May 1 with any food restrictions to mcollett@mit.edu.