Hello, and thanks for your interest in our class blog! This blog is going to chronicle the adventures of our three-week study abroad trip to Rwanda. We'll be posting at least every other day (and sometimes more often than that!) about our experiences in Kigali and in other parts of the country. Each post will be written by a different student on the trip. Below you'll find a description of the course, and please stay tuned to learn more about what we're doing between May 28th and June 20th!
Course Description
In just a few months during
1994, as many as one million people were killed as violence swept across
Rwanda. A civil war, an economic downturn, and growing animosity between
Rwanda’s two main ethnic groups—the Hutus and the Tutsis—preceded the genocide,
which affected all parts of the country. The violence ended just a few months
after it began, leaving Rwanda’s institutions in shambles. Since then, the
Government of Rwanda has engaged in multiple initiatives to rebuild the country,
and Rwanda has rapidly transformed. This course will explore the 1994 Rwandan
genocide and its aftermath through active learning experiences in Rwanda. We
will begin by studying the origins of the genocide with an emphasis on why the
genocide occurred and, more broadly, what causes genocide globally. We will
then study the violence itself, including the forms of violence, who
participated in the violence, and who was victimized. Lastly, we will turn our
attention to the aftermath of the genocide and study the legal response to the
violence. This will involve examining the local gacaca courts that were instituted across the country and the collective
memories of the genocide. We will also examine the current state of human
rights in Rwanda and some of the regional effects of the violence. Finally, we
will study development and aid in Rwanda today, critically exploring the
country’s tremendous economic growth since 1994.
