To date, we have written several academic articles related to the topic of Rwanda 1994.  These are provided below.

       
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Frustrated by the limited amount of freedom available to discuss Rwanda, Christian has also created two comics called RW-94 ("RW" is the standard country code for databases in political science and "94" is the year that the graphic novel focuses on).  This format allowed Christian to more effectively get across what he had seen and experienced.  Here's an overview of the book:

In RW-94, we are introduced to the main character (Christian Davenport) - the somewhat naive and idealistic but at the same time worldly, jaded, and determined African-American academic who traveled to Rwanda to “help”. We are introduced to the Rwanda of 2000 (six years following the genocide and interstate/civil war as well as random violence [its complex]) with all the sights, sounds, smells of something horrifically bad that happened along with the excitement of a people trying to start anew. But things are not what they seem.
 
In 2000, some people are trying to start anew but some are not. Civilians and politicians forge ahead without discussing the conflict while trying to memorialize it. Some organizations are trying to explore the truth of what happened but some are trying to forge their own truth. Davenport is tossed in the middle of this with some hip-hop tapes, a Yankee cap, sneakers, social science, and a couple of colleagues. Virtually joining Davenport to revisit and retell this journey is Darick Ritter in 2015 - an anxious but talented artist who, from thousands of miles away, attempts to craft a visual palette for the story and its retelling – nearly a decade after Davenport’s initial experience.
 
The book moves both deeper into a systematic understanding of Rwanda 1994: the complexity of the violence; the difficulty of exploring the topic with scientific theory and data; and an artistic depiction of all these things to inform and entertain. Most importantly, the book juxtaposes two distinct forces: 1) the increasing realization that what took place was not just a genocide but rather several forms of political violence at the same time (e.g., interstate war, civil war, ethnic conflict, war crimes, atrocities, and criminal activity with no political motivation at all) and 2) the decreasing willingness of the authoritarian regime that emerged in Rwanda
after 1994 to distribute information outside of Rwanda about what took place in the conflict.    
 
The book ends with Davenport being kicked out of Rwanda and told never to return, inaccurately labeled a genocide “denier” because he supposedly “trivialized” the violence. He leaves with one of the most nuanced, detailed and underexplored understandings of what took place in 1994. The telling of this story, however, required more than an academic book or a webpage. It required the creation of a piece where words and pictures could come together in a highly interactive format - facilitating comprehension, reflection, and a reconsideration of everything that people felt that they already understood. It also required the development of a friendship between Ritter and Davenport that transcended time, space, and experience.     
 
To tell this story and its many sides, the graphic novel blends four trajectories of storytelling:
  • Christian’s 2000 experiences of studying the conflict and sharing his findings, only to be kicked out and threatened with death (illustrated in grayscale comics);
  • A lecture-style explanation of facts and events of the conflict, to inform the reader of key elements from the politics of 1994 and 2000 (illustrated in chalkboard-style images);
  • Christian and Darick’s exchanges, to emphasize emotional complexity of storytelling and allow for narrative explanations (illustrated in color comics);
  • Testimonies of victims from the 1994 conflict as told to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (depicted with African-traditional collages using photos to engage real people and places).     
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Chapters
  • 00: In the inaugural installment of "RW-94 – Introduction" (Chapter 1), we meet Christian Davenport: a somewhat idealistic yet jaded African-American academic traveling for the first time to Rwanda in 2000 with intent to help. And, we meet Darick Ritter: a freelance artist interested in science illustration, serendipitously finds himself accompanying Christian on the journey to tell an unconventional story about violence, research, memory and identity. To begin the story, Christian visits a memorial that maintains hundreds of skeletons of people killed in 1994. As he begins telling the story to Darick, Christian must first outline the basics of the conflict, or—what people think they know about it.      
 
  • 01: In the second issue of "RW-94 – Displacement”, Christian dives (or falls) right into the mix in Kigali and learns a lesson or two about what went down in 1994, what's going down in 2000,      and what can and what cannot be discussed. He visits the Nyange Parish memorial; a victim who lost her family in an attack on a church gives her testimony of what happened in Nyange. Darick pushes to get some clarity and a clear direction for the comic.  

  • 02: "RW-94 – Mizungu, Out and About” captures Christian’s growing awareness that Rwandans see him as white which causes all types of problems for him. Christian tries to address this issue while becoming increasingly aware that there is a lot going on in Rwanda with the government, NGOs, and INGOs all over the place trying to “help” the country. Meanwhile, Darick struggles to figure out how best to represent the unrepresentable.
 
  • 03: "RW-94 – Butare, Innocence Gone” - Christian leaves Kigali and travels deeper into the countryside. He meets new collaborators and detractors, and he begins to understand that the standard story is a bit less accurate than he thought before he came to Rwanda. 
 
  • 04: "RW-94 – Data” Christian begins to systematically compile the variety of different data sources that he has discovered – each with their own story of luck and intrigue. Darick and Christian notice that stories diverge and they start to work out a way to capture the Rashomon-like emergence. Christian dives deep into the social science weeds but Darick wants to bring a weed-whacker and some clippers.
 
  • 05: "RW-94 – Persona Non-Grata” involves the period when Christian and his collaborators first present their results in Rwanda in 2004 (at the 10th anniversary). Four findings make up the core: 1) it is incredibly hard to determine what happened, 2) while a great many individuals perished, the estimation ranges from 200,000 to a roughly 1,000,000 casualties, 3) it is likely that more Hutu died than Tutsi in the carnage (making the event more of a political purge than genocide), and 4) the RPF may have provoked violence ahead of their moving throughout the country.  This results in hosts de-hosting, and people doing whatever they can to distance themselves from the controversial results of the research (individuals at the National University of Rwanda, other researchers and the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda who had brought them in as consultants). In the end, Christian and his main collaborator are kicked out the country and they are told never to return (“with any passport”).  
 
  • 06: In the final issue of "RW-94 – Epilogue” we check in over the 15th, 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries of Rwandan political violence.  Over this time, many things have changed. Christian moved away from the topic of Rwanda to do other work. Threats diminished. Rwandan politics took a dark turn as they became less than the shining, democratic beacon that some had hoped and diverse violent activities were disclosed to the international community.  An interesting opportunity to revisit the work on Rwanda comes from the BBC brings Christian and his main collaborator back to Rwanda as the BBC wishes to explore Alternative” accounts of Rwanda 1994. They present their work and conclusions, the BBC is banned from Rwanda, Christian and his collaborators are subject to another round of hostility/threats. This time, however, the team does not withdraw. Rather, the research is revisited and numerous papers as well as a book are worked on. Sensing that a mainstream social science piece might not be the best place to tell the increasingly complex story, two chance meetings send Christian in a different direction: 1) Christian comes across John Lewis’ March in a local comic store and 2) a political scientist (Emily Ritter) introduces him to her artist husband (Darick Ritter).
 
The webpage for RW-94 is here: https://rw-94.weebly.com/#/.  Below are some examples:
In the inaugural installment of "RW-94", we meet Christian Davenport: a somewhat naive idealistic, yet jaded, worldly African-American academic traveling for the first time to Rwanda in 2000 with intent to help.  And, we meet Darick Ritter: an angst-ridden, artist extraordinaire who finds himself accompanying Christian on the journey to tell an unconventional story about violence, research, memory and identity.  Click here to buy a kindle version on Amazon!  
In the second issue (Chapter 1), Christian dives or falls right into the mix in Kigali and learns a lesson or two about what went down, what's going down as well as what can and what cannot be discussed.  Darick pushes to get some clarity and a clear direction for the comic.  ​Click here to buy a kindle version!
We stopped there but the whole book was planned out