Author Talk: Alexandra Sellassie Antohin

Join Heran Sereke Brhan, Deputy Director of the National Museum of African Art, in conversation with Alexandra Sellassie Antohin, author of The Covenant's Veil - Ethiopian Orthodox Tradition of Elaboration (Fordham University Press, 2024). The book explores how contemporary Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity preserves and protects sacred ideas and relationships.

Dr. Alexandra Sellassie Antohin, anthropologist, has been an educator at George Washington University, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Middlebury College, Westchester Community College, and University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr. Antohin's research has focused on ethnographic studies with Orthodox Christian communities in Ethiopia and the Russian Far East, as well as historical research on the Russian Church in Alaska. Her expertise in community-based qualitative research and her commitment to heritage advocacy enhance her role in supporting cultural institutions and educational initiatives.

Don't miss a book signing with Sellassie Antohin following the talk!

• 6:00PM Doors Open
• 6:30PM Discussion, Sylvia Williams Gallery (S1)
• 7:45PM Book Signing
• 8:30PM Event Concludes

This program is part of the museum’s 2026 Global Religions of Africa Initiative series, funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc., which includes NMAfA’s recent publication, Ethiopian Devotions: Paintings, Illuminated Manuscripts, and Processional Crosses from the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (November, 2025) celebrating the distinctive religious architecture, visual arts, literature, liturgical traditions, and poetry of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which dates to the 4th century BCE.

By attending this event, you grant the Smithsonian Institution permission to photograph, film, videotape you and/or record your voice and likeness in connection with or the promotion of the project.

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Host or Publisher National Museum of African Art