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

Media Coverage of PEMM on Princeton Home Page

Media Coverage of PEMM on Princeton Home Page

By Jamie Saxon

December 20, 2023

A Princeton humanities project shares a vast digital ‘Miracles of Mary’ collection of centuries-old African stories and art

Stories about the Virgin Mary “have been told by more people, over more centuries, in more countries, and in more languages” than stories about “anyone else ever,” says Wendy Laura Belcher, professor of comparative literature and African American studies. “No other body of literature illuminates as much about how different cultures have made sense of the human and the divine.”

Belcher has led a major research project about a huge collection of these stories from the African continent, which have never been the subject of deep, wide-ranging scholarship outside of Ethiopia. Five years of work by a primarily Ethiopian team of researchers and translators, as well as Princeton undergraduate students, has culminated in the Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) website, a project in the digital humanities.

See the rest of the story here.

pricenton ethiopian eritrean & egyptian miracles of marry project

The Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) project is a comprehensive resource for the 1,000+ miracle stories written about and the 2,500+ images painted of the Virgin Mary in these African countries, and preserved in Geʿez between 1300 and the present.

Princeton Department of Comparative Literature 133 East Pyne, Princeton, NJ 08540

Princeton Department of African American Studies Morrison Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540

pemm@princeton.edu

© 2024 The Trustees of Princeton University