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Rwanda in the Wake of Genocide:

Stretching to Understand the Unfathomable

This is a special version of Prof. Wadsworth’s ASEM on Political Forgiveness, designed as a Winter Interterm travel course to Rwanda.

This website chronicles the journey of Professor Nancy Wadsworth’s Winter 2018 Advanced Seminar, a travel course about the Rwandan genocide and the country’s subsequent efforts to repair and remember.

BLOG POSTS

These are posts by students on the trip, part of their final class requirements.

Please note: Violence and sexual violence are referenced in all following posts

Lessons that Will Stay with Me

Lessons that Will Stay with Me

Professor Nancy D. Wadsworth
I hope to continue refining the class in coming years, but I know that the profundity and sense of emotional community that marked the first time with this remarkable group of students will be forever impressed on my memory.

Tuyisenge Narcisse

Tuyisenge Narcisse

Austin Clapp
In Narcisse’s story, this truly seems to be what has caused him the most suffering: the feeling of having everything that was once his being ripped away with no ability to control the outcome.

The Catholic Problem in the Rwandan Genocide

The Catholic Problem in the Rwandan Genocide

Tom Oexeman
As we learned, some of the deadliest massacre sites were Catholic Churches, most notably Ntarama and Nyamata, and partly because their priests abandoned their own parishioners or actively enabled genocidaires.

When People Resist Genocide

When People Resist Genocide

Lauren Yehle
With so much emphasis on survivors, it’s difficult to understand what inspired some Hutus to murder and others to resist.

Yahrzeit*

Yahrzeit*

Anne Pogoriler

There were many echoes of the Holocaust in our tour of Rwanda’s more recent trauma.

About the Class

In December of 2018, Prof. Nancy Wadsworth, along with teaching assistant Anne Pogoriler, took six DU students to Rwanda for a once-in-a-lifetime educational experience.

For most of our trip, we were based in Kigali, traveling to memorial sites and visiting organizations in and around the area. We also traveled to the Huye district in the southwest. For our full itinerary (minus some spur-of-the-moment adjustments), click below.

The coursework was designed to prepare us for and complement our field trips. We read a major history of Rwanda as well as articles on psychological aspects of the genocide and various approaches to healing and rebuilding the country after.