As part of its engagement with the international Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project, the Wiener Library will host a talk exploring how graphic novels have proven to be a powerful medium for sharing stories of the Holocaust and other genocides and mass atrocities. A panel discussion will reveal how those lessons are currently being applied in the creation of new survivor-centered graphic novels about the Holocaust and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Drawing on the expertise of three of the project researchers, the talk will showcase the potential of the graphic novel medium to portray survivor stories. The researchers will discuss how the project works with artists and survivors to create new educational approaches. The evening will include the public premiere of a short film, ‘Why We Dance’, that has been made by filmmaker Marc Ellison about the team’s current co-creative work with Rwandan genocide survivors and graphic novelists Michel Kichka (the son of a Holocaust survivor) and Elyon’s.
About the speakers
Dr Fransiska Louwagie is Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and Co-Lead for the Rwandan Cluster of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project. She works on survivor narratives and the representation of the Holocaust in contemporary Francophone fiction and bande dessinée. Her research also focuses on issues of migration, bilingualism and translation. Her work has involved various research collaborations in the field of drama and the visual arts, particularly graphic novels, post-Holocaust art and political cartooning.
Dr Erin Jessee is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and Co-Lead for the Rwandan Cluster of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project. Her primary research focuses on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which Hutu Power extremists attempted to exterminate the nation’s ethnic Tutsi minority. She also researches earlier periods of Rwandan history with the goal of drawing attention to women historical actors who have been largely overlooked in written accounts about Rwanda.
Dr Alexander Korb was Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Leicester and, in 2024/25, director of the Nuremberg Trials Museum. He serves as co-lead of the Holocaust cluster within the Visual Storytelling and Graphic Art in Genocide and Human Rights Education project. Currently, he is writing a book on Criminal Law in Germany, 1919-1949.
