Podcast appearances and mentions of jennie burnet

When leaders of multicultural societies emphasize ethnic division over national unity, assigning blame to the “other” and focusing on our differences rather than our similarities, the stage is set for political violence… or worse. Dr. Jennie Burnet’s research into the causes and consequences of the 1994 Rwandan genocide reveals why we should be concerned about the current political moment in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, but it also suggests ways people can come together and take action to unify. Through diverse political representation, adept leadership, and public reinforcement of unity over division, other nations can avoid the catastrophic legacy that Rwandans are still recovering from today.

This spring, I taught a class loosely called “The Holocaust through Primary Sources” to a small group of selected students. I started one class by asking them the deceptively simple question “When did the Holocaust end?” The first consensus answer was “1945.” After some discussion, the students changed their answer. The new consensus was simple. It hasn’t yet. This came to mind when reading Susan Thomson‘s powerful new book Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). While writing the book,  Thomson talked at length with a variety of ‘ordinary’ people in Rwanda.  Their stories remind us that recovery, both societal and personal, from the events of 1994, has been both halting and problematic.  Her account, like that of Jennie Burnet, also draws our attention to the ways governments’ efforts to shape and reshape cultures of remembrance impact individuals decades after violence is over. With historians and others paying more and more attention to the aftermaths of mass violence, Thomson’s book sheds light both on issues specific to Rwanda and more generally to the history of remembrance and reconciliation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This spring, I taught a class loosely called “The Holocaust through Primary Sources” to a small group of selected students. I started one class by asking them the deceptively simple question “When did the Holocaust end?” The first consensus answer was “1945.” After some discussion, the students changed their answer. The new consensus was simple. It hasn’t yet. This came to mind when reading Susan Thomson‘s powerful new book Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). While writing the book,  Thomson talked at length with a variety of ‘ordinary’ people in Rwanda.  Their stories remind us that recovery, both societal and personal, from the events of 1994, has been both halting and problematic.  Her account, like that of Jennie Burnet, also draws our attention to the ways governments’ efforts to shape and reshape cultures of remembrance impact individuals decades after violence is over. With historians and others paying more and more attention to the aftermaths of mass violence, Thomson’s book sheds light both on issues specific to Rwanda and more generally to the history of remembrance and reconciliation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This spring, I taught a class loosely called “The Holocaust through Primary Sources” to a small group of selected students. I started one class by asking them the deceptively simple question “When did the Holocaust end?” The first consensus answer was “1945.” After some discussion, the students changed their answer. The new consensus was simple. It hasn’t yet. This came to mind when reading Susan Thomson‘s powerful new book Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). While writing the book,  Thomson talked at length with a variety of ‘ordinary’ people in Rwanda.  Their stories remind us that recovery, both societal and personal, from the events of 1994, has been both halting and problematic.  Her account, like that of Jennie Burnet, also draws our attention to the ways governments’ efforts to shape and reshape cultures of remembrance impact individuals decades after violence is over. With historians and others paying more and more attention to the aftermaths of mass violence, Thomson’s book sheds light both on issues specific to Rwanda and more generally to the history of remembrance and reconciliation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government's decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals' efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government’s decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals’ efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government’s decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals’ efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government’s decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals’ efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government’s decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals’ efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our fast-paced world, it is easy to move from one crisis to another. Conflicts loom in rapid succession, problems demand solutions (or at least analysis) and impending disasters require a response. It is all we can do to pay attention to the present moment. Lingering on the consequences of the past seems to take too much of our finite attention. Jennie Burnet‘s fantastic new book Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), offers a useful corrective to this fascination with the immediate. Jennie is interested primarily in what it means to live in a society ruptured by violence. She writes about how people try to speak, or not speak, about the killing that destroyed their families or those of their neighbors. She reflects on how the government’s decision to try to forestall future violence by eliminating ethnic categories affects individuals’ efforts to shape their own identity and self-understanding. She analyzes the way practices of memorialization reflect changing ways of understanding and narrating past atrocities. And she allows her subjects to share the challenges of living in a world where the past is always present. Jennie, both in print and in the interview, is thoughtful, articulate and compassionate. I hope the interview gives you a taste of the richness of her book. Genocide Lives in Us won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Book Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. It also received an honorable mention for the 2013 Melville J. Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices