Samtale og debatt
Global Book Launch: The Hatata Inquiries
*Hybrid event* Welcome to the book launch of The Hatata Inquiries: Two Texts of Seventeenth-Century African Philosophy from Ethiopia about Reason, the Creator, and Our Ethical Responsibilities (De Gruyter, November 2023).
120 years after two inquiries (Hatätas), written in the Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez), were re-discovered in the National Library in Paris, they are now translated and published in English for the first time outside of Ethiopia. The earliest philosophical inquiry was written by Zara Yaqob (1600-1693) in 1668, the second by his student Walda Heywat. These unique texts advocate for women’s rights and rail against slavery; they question biblical commands while delegating in the language of Psalms; they put reason above belief, desire above scepticism, love above sectarianism, and the natural world above the human.
Welcome to a conversation (Q&A) with the editors/translators:
Wendy Laura Belcher (Princeton University)
Ralph Lee (University of Oxford)
Mehari Worku and Jeremy R. Brown (Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.) (All live via Internet).
On stage in Oslo (Deichman Tøyen):
Rahwa Yohaness (host, Editor-in-Chief of Afrika.no)
Dag Herbjørnsrud (global historian of ideas, author of the book’s Preface)