Fellowship Report
My fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Studies MagEIA (Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe: KFG) at the University of Würzburg, which extended from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025, has been one of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of my academic life. MagEIA—an institute where the study of magic in the ancient world is pursued in its truest and most rigorous form—opened before me an entirely new world of research and reflection. Before joining the Centre, I had neither the interest nor the intention to engage with texts of magical content. My scholarly path had always gravitated toward the sacred and theological, not the magical. It was my long-time colleague and friend, Professor Dan Levene, who first opened that door for me. Through his encouragement—and perhaps a touch of gentle insistence—he drew me into the MagEIA Haus, where I soon found myself surrounded by scholars whose passion and depth of inquiry redefined my understanding of ancient and medieval intellectual life.
What began as a hesitant step into an unfamiliar domain quickly became an enriching journey. My time at MagEIA offered the rare opportunity to engage closely with texts I had long regarded as peripheral to my own interests. Immersed in a vibrant and demanding academic environment, I discovered that these manuscripts, far from being marginal curiosities, are in fact vital witnesses to the spiritual and intellectual currents that have shaped human imagination across cultures. The twice-weekly seminars at the Centre were a central part of this awakening. There, in the company of generous and exacting colleagues, I learned to read magical manuscripts as living documents—repositories of language, ritual, and creativity that connect the Ethiopian world to broader traditions of thought in antiquity and late antiquity. These seminars, always rigorous and yet collegial, taught me to approach the magical with respect, precision, and openness, and to appreciate its power to illuminate what lies between religion, medicine, and art.
During my fellowship, I was able to make substantial progress in both new and ongoing research projects. I completed the manuscript of The Book of Wisdom – An Ethiopian Medico-Magical Book, now in press with Würzburg University Press, and continued collaborative work with Professor Levene on The Ethiopic Scroll of Righteousness. I also pursued several new studies that grew directly from my engagement at MagEIA, including essays on temporal and spatial dimensions in Ethiopian magical traditions, on Maʾesara ʿAganent (Chain of Demons), and on Yaqalam ʿAbǝnnat, a text exploring the magico-medical path to intelligence in Ethiopia. Alongside these writings, I had the privilege of presenting my research at various academic gatherings: at the first MagEIA Symposium, where I spoke on Unlocking the Power of Words: The Codex as a Sacred Vessel in Ethiopian Magical Rituals; at the MagEIA seminar, where I discussed the Chain of Demons; and at the SCIAS Lecture Series, where I presented my reflections on Yaqalam ʿAbǝnnat.
Beyond these new directions, my stay in Würzburg also gave me the quiet and focused time necessary to complete several major editorial responsibilities that had accompanied me for years. During this period, I finalized Echoes of Heritage in “the Land of Origins”: Ethiopian Manuscripts, Language, Culture, and Faith – A Gedenkschrift to Professor Emeritus Getatchew Haile (1931–2021), now published as the 68th volume in the African Studies Series by LIT Verlag (2025). I also completed my contribution “In Search of Cure for Ethiopia’s ʾAskwālā (Modern Education)? Let’s Go for ʾAbǝnnat” for the volume ʾAbǝnnat for Ethiopia’s Modern Education (Addis Ababa: Jajaw Printers and Developers plc., 2025), and prepared for publication Printed Saints: Life and Afterlife of Ethiopian Saints from Parchment to Paper, forthcoming with Brill. In this way, MagEIA became not only a place of discovery but also a place of completion—a house of quiet perseverance and generous inspiration.
Yet my Würzburg experience was not confined to scholarly life alone. The city itself, with its gentle hills, serene river, and intellectual calm, soon became a place of belonging. The Ethiopian community in Würzburg and its surroundings offered me friendship and a sense of home away from home. Sharing Sunday liturgies with fellow Ethiopian Orthodox Christians at Saint Mark Ethiopian Orthodox Church (Pfaffenbergstraße 6, 97080 Würzburg) was among the most cherished parts of my routine. Those moments of prayer, song, and communal warmth balanced the intensity of academic work with a grounding rhythm of spiritual life.
Looking back, I can say that my year at MagEIA was not simply a scholarly appointment—it was an encounter with new ways of seeing and knowing. It allowed me to rethink boundaries: between the sacred and the magical, between the written and the spoken, between scholarship and lived faith. I leave Würzburg with gratitude—for the intellectual generosity of my colleagues, for the hospitality of the MagEIA Haus, and for the city that welcomed me with such warmth. Back in Hamburg, my second academic home, I will carry with me the lessons and friendships born of this extraordinary year. And even as I resume my own DFG supported project there, part of me will remain in Würzburg—its libraries, its conversations, its sunlight over the Main River.
Back to Hamburg, I will continue to dream Würzburg.
Dr. Mersha Alehegne
Hamburg / Würzburg, 2025
