About

Professor Wendy Laura Belcher is a faculty member in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department for African American Studies at Princeton University. Her research focuses on early African literature, African language literature, and African literature in English, with a particular interest in the literatures of Ethiopia and Ghana. She works at the intersection of diaspora, postcolonial, medieval, and early modern studies, aiming to bring attention to early African texts written between 1300 and 1900, especially those in African languages. Belcher has developed multiple projects, including comparative studies demonstrating how African thought has influenced British and European canonical literature, and translations of significant African texts such as the biography of Walatta Petros and the Kebra Nagast. She is also engaged in digital humanities projects analyzing Ethiopian miracle stories and is working on translating the Kebra Nagast for the Penguin Classics series. Her scholarly contributions include authoring books on Ethiopian literature and philosophy, translating important African texts, and collaborating on edited volumes about early African written literature. Belcher's background includes growing up in East and West Africa, which informs her research and teaching. Her teaching emphasizes how non-Western literature has participated in a global exchange of ideas, challenging stereotypes of African peoples as lacking history or influence. She has also authored a widely used guide on academic publishing success and has worked extensively in publishing and translation, receiving awards for her work on African biographies and editions. Her current projects include a book on Ethiopian miracle stories and a digital humanities initiative supported by Princeton. She is interested in mentoring graduate students with research interests aligned with her own, particularly in African language literature and comparative African-European studies.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Philosophy
• History
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Biology
• Media studies
• Law
• Genetics
• Linguistics
• Archaeology
• Epistemology
• Art history

Selected publications

• Implementing a Transition to Grade 2 Capability Program to support the training of early career Allied Health Professionals

  Rural and Remote Health · 2025-02-05

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Appendix 2: Scribal Intervention in Abb 215 and Abb 234

  2023-11-06

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction to the Hatata Inquiries

  2023-11-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) Project

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-08-21

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary digital humanities project (PEMM) is a comprehensive resource for the miracle stories about the Virgin Mary in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt, and preserved in Gəˁəz parchment manuscripts between 1300 and the present. Directed by Prof. Wendy Laura Belcher and then managed by Evgeniia Lambrinaki, PEMM was launched in March 2018, using as its base the miracle story identifications William F. Macomber made in the 1980s. <strong>Dataset</strong>. PEMM 2.0 includes the data collected by the project in Google Sheets from its inception to July 4, 2023. This date marked the end of our use of Google Sheets as our database and the end of Jeremy Brown's full-time involvement with the project (when he moved to be the cataloger of Ethiopic manuscripts at HMML). This data includes 1,002 identified stories (or 940 separate stories) (called Canonical Stories); 549 stories translated into English (288 stories translated by PEMM team; 223 stories translated and published by others) and another 200 stories summarized; 676 fully cataloged manuscripts (with another 334 identified, but awaiting digitization) (in Gəˁəz and a few in Arabic) (called Manuscripts); 51,690 stories documented in those manuscripts (called Story Instances); 21,403 typed Gəˁəz incipits (unique first lines) for those stories; and 2,547 paintings with 4,205 scenes in 262 manuscripts (called Paintings). The manuscripts come from 92 repositories and libraries around the world (called Collections) and the stories were composed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt (and probably Nubia, although not confirmed), as well as Europe and the Levant (called Story Origins). <strong>Database</strong>. The PEMM Project began by using Google Sheets as a lightweight relational database. To learn about this innovative digital humanities approach by Princeton’s CDH’s, read the “Is a Spreadsheet a Database?” (February 21, 2021) article by PEMM lead developer, Rebecca Sutton Koeser. Due to our extremely large dataset (7 Google sheets in one workbook, each with at least 40 columns, and one with 50,000 rows, with dozens of complex formulas linking the fields in the various sheets), Google Sheets would repeatedly hang up. So, in July we migrated all our data to an Aurora PostgreSQL database, accessing it with a content management system called Directus. However, this Zenodo dataset represents the data as it last appeared in Google Sheets. <strong>Website</strong>. The current PEMM website (not yet its web application and data portal) is at https://pemm.princeton.edu. We will launch the full web application and data portal in mid-fall 2023. <strong>Team</strong>. PEMM was created in collaboration with Princeton’s Center for Digital Humanities (mainly with Rebecca Sutton Koesser, Jean Bauer, and Nicholas Budak, but with additional support from Gissoo Doroudian, Rebecca Munson [of beloved memory], and Kevin McElwee); directed by Prof. Wendy Laura Belcher; managed primarily by Evgeniia Lambrinaki into mid-2022 and then by Blaine Kebede; contributed to by catalogers Jeremy Brown, Mehari Worku, Dawit Muluneh, Solomon Gebreyes, Vitagrazia Pisani, Ekaterina Pukhovaia, and Steve Delamarter; web programmed by Henok Alem, who was assisted by Pak Hei Li, Ayomikun M. Gbadamosi, and Marew Masresha; edited by Taylor Eggan, assisted by Bret Windhauser; assisted by Hanni Makonnen for geolocating; typed by volunteers (including Mihret Melaku, Tariku Abas Sherif, Beimnet Beyene Kassaye, Annabel S. Lemma, Tsega-ab Hailemichael, Chiara Lombardi, and Ellen Perleberg); and translatated and/or summarized by Princeton undergraduates (including Lauren D. Johnson, Sana Khan, Jason O. Seavey, Leia R. Walker, Nati Arbelaez Solano, Daniel Somwaru, Mika J. Hyman, Grace Matthews, Allie V. Mangel, Ellen Li, Elliot Galvis). Support at Princeton is provided by Michael Franz and Amanda M. Arcamone. <strong>Partners</strong>. Among its board members are Elias Wondimu, Melaku Terefe, Solomon Gebreyes, Eyob Derillo, Meron Gebreananaye, Sofanit T. Abebe, Habte Michael Kidane, Hagos Abrha, Mussie Berhe, Woldesemait Teklehaymanot, and Alessandro Bausi. Among PEMM’s institutional partners are Beta Maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea at the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies of the Universität Hamburg, created and directed by Principal Investigator Alessandro Bausi; Hill Museum &amp; Manuscript Library, led by Father Columba Stewart; and the British Library, Asian and African Collections, with Eyob Derillo as cataloger. <strong>Internal Funding</strong>. PEMM’s first and second phase were made possible by the Princeton Center for Digital Humanities, directed by Meredith Martin, and its team of Natalia Ermolaev, Rebecca Sutton Koeser, Gissoo Doroudian, Rebecca Munson (of beloved memory), Nick Budak, and Kevin McElwee. The second phase was supported by a CDH Research Partnership grant. The third phase was funded by the Princeton Humanities Council, executive directed by Kathleen Crown, through the David A. Gardner Innovation Grants for New Projects in the Humanities, and the University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Other important funders throughout were the Princeton Department of African American Studies, directed by the Eddie S. Glaude, as well as the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies (directed by Wallace Best), the Program in African Studies (directed by Emmanuel Kreike and now Chika Okeke-Agulu), the Center for the Study of Religion (directed by Jonathan Gold), and the Department of Comparative Literature (directed by Thomas Hare). <strong>External funding</strong>. PEMM’s fourth phase was made possible by two major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, awarded for work from fall 2021 through summer 2024. In the 1970s, NEH provided funding for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML), which microfilmed thousands of manuscripts in Ethiopia, which serve as the backbone for the PEMM project. Today, the NEH Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations Grant funds the team of experienced researchers with rare language skills to catalog stories in parchment manuscripts, translate stories into English, and write short introductions to them. The NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant funds a public-facing open-access web application and data portal to share the stories in, images about, translations of, and scholarship on this crucial body of medieval African literature and to build upon our innovative prototype tool for searching in Gəˁəz.

  PublisherDOI

• The Authorship of the Hatata Inquiries

  2023-11-06 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Manuscripts of the Texts

  2023-11-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Translation Principles

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2023 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• Translation of the Hatata Zara Yaqob

  2023-11-06

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• CHAPTER 3 THE SOLOMONIC CHRISTIAN KINGDOM OF ETHIOPIA

  2023-11-09

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) Project

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-08-21

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary digital humanities project (PEMM) is a comprehensive resource for the miracle stories about the Virgin Mary in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt, and preserved in Gəˁəz parchment manuscripts between 1300 and the present. Directed by Prof. Wendy Laura Belcher and then managed by Evgeniia Lambrinaki, PEMM was launched in March 2018, using as its base the miracle story identifications William F. Macomber made in the 1980s. <strong>Dataset</strong>. PEMM 2.0 includes the data collected by the project in Google Sheets from its inception to July 4, 2023. This date marked the end of our use of Google Sheets as our database and the end of Jeremy Brown's full-time involvement with the project (when he moved to be the cataloger of Ethiopic manuscripts at HMML). This data includes 1,002 identified stories (or 940 separate stories) (called Canonical Stories); 549 stories translated into English (288 stories translated by PEMM team; 223 stories translated and published by others) and another 200 stories summarized; 676 fully cataloged manuscripts (with another 334 identified, but awaiting digitization) (in Gəˁəz and a few in Arabic) (called Manuscripts); 51,690 stories documented in those manuscripts (called Story Instances); 21,403 typed Gəˁəz incipits (unique first lines) for those stories; and 2,547 paintings with 4,205 scenes in 262 manuscripts (called Paintings). The manuscripts come from 92 repositories and libraries around the world (called Collections) and the stories were composed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt (and probably Nubia, although not confirmed), as well as Europe and the Levant (called Story Origins). <strong>Database</strong>. The PEMM Project began by using Google Sheets as a lightweight relational database. To learn about this innovative digital humanities approach by Princeton’s CDH’s, read the “Is a Spreadsheet a Database?” (February 21, 2021) article by PEMM lead developer, Rebecca Sutton Koeser. Due to our extremely large dataset (7 Google sheets in one workbook, each with at least 40 columns, and one with 50,000 rows, with dozens of complex formulas linking the fields in the various sheets), Google Sheets would repeatedly hang up. So, in July we migrated all our data to an Aurora PostgreSQL database, accessing it with a content management system called Directus. However, this Zenodo dataset represents the data as it last appeared in Google Sheets. <strong>Website</strong>. The current PEMM website (not yet its web application and data portal) is at https://pemm.princeton.edu. We will launch the full web application and data portal in mid-fall 2023. <strong>Team</strong>. PEMM was created in collaboration with Princeton’s Center for Digital Humanities (mainly with Rebecca Sutton Koesser, Jean Bauer, and Nicholas Budak, but with additional support from Gissoo Doroudian, Rebecca Munson [of beloved memory], and Kevin McElwee); directed by Prof. Wendy Laura Belcher; managed primarily by Evgeniia Lambrinaki into mid-2022 and then by Blaine Kebede; contributed to by catalogers Jeremy Brown, Mehari Worku, Dawit Muluneh, Solomon Gebreyes, Vitagrazia Pisani, Ekaterina Pukhovaia, and Steve Delamarter; web programmed by Henok Alem, who was assisted by Pak Hei Li, Ayomikun M. Gbadamosi, and Marew Masresha; edited by Taylor Eggan, assisted by Bret Windhauser; assisted by Hanni Makonnen for geolocating; typed by volunteers (including Mihret Melaku, Tariku Abas Sherif, Beimnet Beyene Kassaye, Annabel S. Lemma, Tsega-ab Hailemichael, Chiara Lombardi, and Ellen Perleberg); and translatated and/or summarized by Princeton undergraduates (including Lauren D. Johnson, Sana Khan, Jason O. Seavey, Leia R. Walker, Nati Arbelaez Solano, Daniel Somwaru, Mika J. Hyman, Grace Matthews, Allie V. Mangel, Ellen Li, Elliot Galvis). Support at Princeton is provided by Michael Franz and Amanda M. Arcamone. <strong>Partners</strong>. Among its board members are Elias Wondimu, Melaku Terefe, Solomon Gebreyes, Eyob Derillo, Meron Gebreananaye, Sofanit T. Abebe, Habte Michael Kidane, Hagos Abrha, Mussie Berhe, Woldesemait Teklehaymanot, and Alessandro Bausi. Among PEMM’s institutional partners are Beta Maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea at the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies of the Universität Hamburg, created and directed by Principal Investigator Alessandro Bausi; Hill Museum &amp; Manuscript Library, led by Father Columba Stewart; and the British Library, Asian and African Collections, with Eyob Derillo as cataloger. <strong>Internal Funding</strong>. PEMM’s first and second phase were made possible by the Princeton Center for Digital Humanities, directed by Meredith Martin, and its team of Natalia Ermolaev, Rebecca Sutton Koeser, Gissoo Doroudian, Rebecca Munson (of beloved memory), Nick Budak, and Kevin McElwee. The second phase was supported by a CDH Research Partnership grant. The third phase was funded by the Princeton Humanities Council, executive directed by Kathleen Crown, through the David A. Gardner Innovation Grants for New Projects in the Humanities, and the University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Other important funders throughout were the Princeton Department of African American Studies, directed by the Eddie S. Glaude, as well as the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies (directed by Wallace Best), the Program in African Studies (directed by Emmanuel Kreike and now Chika Okeke-Agulu), the Center for the Study of Religion (directed by Jonathan Gold), and the Department of Comparative Literature (directed by Thomas Hare). <strong>External funding</strong>. PEMM’s fourth phase was made possible by two major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, awarded for work from fall 2021 through summer 2024. In the 1970s, NEH provided funding for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML), which microfilmed thousands of manuscripts in Ethiopia, which serve as the backbone for the PEMM project. Today, the NEH Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations Grant funds the team of experienced researchers with rare language skills to catalog stories in parchment manuscripts, translate stories into English, and write short introductions to them. The NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant funds a public-facing open-access web application and data portal to share the stories in, images about, translations of, and scholarship on this crucial body of medieval African literature and to build upon our innovative prototype tool for searching in Gəˁəz.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carli Coetzee

  Princeton University

  16 shared

• Lindiwe De Bruijn

  Pratt Institute

  16 shared

• Laura Munro

  Empire State University

  16 shared

• Ikechukwu Okereke

  American University

  16 shared

• David Alberto Londoño Vásquez

  Hospital Las Higueras

  16 shared

• Jeanne-Marie Z'étoile Imma

  Empire State University

  16 shared

• S. Santana

  16 shared

• Stephen Groening

  Empire State University

  16 shared

Education

• PhD, Department of English

  UCLA

  2008

Awards & honors

• Fulbright US Scholars Award
• Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (SSEMW) award fo…
• African Studies Association Paul Hair Award for the Best Cri…