A legacy beyond the vintage records
The late Alemayehu Eshete, and musical contemporaries like Mulatu Astatke and Girma Beyene worked around huge obstacles to create a unique Ethiopian sound and make it global.
Ethiopia
What happened to Ethiopia?
The ongoing displacement and killings of minorities and the ongoing war in Tigray—labeled by the federal government as enforcing law and order—are disturbing. It can't go on.
Ethiopian women making movies
The presence of successful female writers, directors, and producers set Ethiopia's film industry apart from Hollywood, Bollywood, and the rest of world cinema.
Ethiopia’s murderous new era
The writer's brother died in the political violence that has become part of how political power is being contested in Ethiopia.
Geographies of war-making in East Africa
African states are involved in the War on Terror more than we think. They're surrounded by an eco-system of the war industry.
In search of Ethiopia’s past and present
The film "Finding Sally" grapples with Ethiopia's past, but may romanticize its present.
Holding living bodies in graveyards
The violence of keeping Ethiopian manuscripts in Western institutions.
How to think about Ethiopian politics today
Social science and the ghosts of “the nationalities question” in Ethiopia today.
Ethiopia’s war of narratives
The current political conflict, now a civil war, in Ethiopia partly has its roots in disagreement among elites on how to narrativize Ethiopian history.
The view from the factory floor
Industrialization was sought as a panacea to ethnic conflicts, resource crisis, and unemployment. But what prospects does it actually offer to Ethiopian youth?
In the shadow of a liberation war
Kenya needs to understand the Oromo cause and what is happening across the border in Ethiopia.
The violence in Ethiopia
The imminent and existential danger to Ethiopia is not Abiy Ahmed and an oppressive government. It is violent ethno-nationalism.
The media’s crisis on Ethiopia
Western media coverage of Ethiopia’s political crisis turns a blind eye to the grassroots movement behind the protests.
What she wore
The exhibition, 'Men Lebsa Neber,' features a staggering collection of the clothes and stories of rape survivors across Ethiopia.
Essential workers
When a young Ethiopian, Haile Gerima, made a film about the exploitative nature of American college sports and the role of Black athletes in society.
The wife’s tale
First published in 2018, Aida Edemariam’s The Wife’s Tale is an extraordinary book that will help in opening up new narratives about women's histories.
The lesser of two evils
In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a partial COVID-19 lockdown has increased domestic violence, but women are not turning to shelters.
Confronting the weapon of photography
The imperial legacy of the camera and the narrative power of words and images.
The legend of flying Africans
The film Uncut Gems, Black American identity politics, and the narrative appeal of Ethiopian beginnings.