The Rwandan genocide in writing and visuality: memory, violence representations and the Anthropocene.

Author

Theophilus Okunlola

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Spain, Andrea

Committee Member

DeGabriele, Peter

Committee Member

Shaffer, Don M.

Date of Degree

5-1-2020

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of English

Abstract

Three main challenges often confront societies that have experienced mass atrocities and genocide: understanding genocide, narrating and representing genocide, and reconciling after genocide. While these challenges seem different, they are intertwined and often inseparable. This thesis takes on these questions in various degrees by focusing on the subjects of memory, representations of violence and the Anthropocene. By reading two novels and one graphic novel, I argue that a multi-representational and multi-perspectival analysis of the Rwandan genocide gives a perspective through one can think through the questions of narrative silence and erasures, gender and sexual violence, animality and the boundaries between victims and killers. Altogether, the texts represent a genocide testimony that aligns and at the same counters the official narrative of the Rwandan genocide circulated by the Rwandan government.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16680

Recommended Citation

Okunlola, Theophilus, "The Rwandan genocide in writing and visuality: memory, violence representations and the Anthropocene." (2020). Theses and Dissertations. 4647.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/4647