Writing and Filming the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: Dismembering and Remembering Traumatic History is an innovative work in Francophone and African studies that examines a wide range of responses to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. From survivor testimonies, to novels by African authors, to films such as Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April, the arts of witnessing are varied, comprehensive, and compelling. Alexandre Dauge-Roth compares the specific potential and the limits of each medium to craft unique responses to the genocide and instill in us its haunting legacy. In the wake of genocide, urgent questions arise: How do survivors both claim their shared humanity and speak the radically personal and violent experience of their past? How do authors and filmmakers make inconceivable trauma accessible to a society that will always remain foreign to their experience? How are we transformed by the genocide through these various modes of listening, viewing, and reading?
Alexandre Dauge-Roth is associate professor of French at Bates College.
Table of Contents
Part 1 INTRODUCTION Chapter 2 1. Excess of Memory? Chapter 3 2. Historical Preamble to Set the Scene Chapter 4 3. Testimony, Literature, and Film as Vectors of Memory Part 5 PART ONE: The Testimonial Encounter Chapter 6 4. The Hospitality of Listening as Interruption Chapter 7 5. Staging the Ob-Scene Chapter 8 6. Becoming Heirs and Going on Haunted Part 9 PART TWO: Dismembering Remembering: "Rwanda: Writing as a Duty to Remember" Chapter 10 7. We Came, We Saw… We Listened Chapter 11 8. Belated Witnessing and Preemptive Positioning Chapter 12 9. Between Highlights and Shadows: Tadjo's Entries Chapter 13 10. Writing as Haunting Pollination: Lamko's Butterfly Chapter 14 11. Polyvocal Dismembering: Diop's Remembering of Murambi Part 15 PART THREE: Screening Memory and (Un)Framing Forgetting: Filming Genocide and its Aftermath in Rwanda Chapter 16 12. No Neutral Shooting Chapter 17 13. Close-up on some Recurrent Facts and Figures Chapter 18 14. A Pedagogy Against Forgetting that Sometimes Forgets Itself Chapter 19 15. Historical and Contextual Trompe-l'œil Chapter 20 16. Ob-Scene Off-Screened: A Genocide Off-Camera Chapter 21 17. The Heir or the Return of the Off-Screened Part 22 EPILOGUE: On Turning the Page Chapter 23 18. Testimony, Memory, and Reconciliation in the Era of Gacaca