Dr Hannah Grayson

Senior Lecturer

French Stirling

Dr Hannah Grayson

Contact details

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http://www.stir.ac.uk/people/hannahgrayson

About me

I am a Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies, and have worked at Stirling since 2019. My research examines textual responses to violence and instability in the French-speaking world. Primarily this work is concerned with how writers of fiction explore the contexts and aftermaths of different kinds of extreme events. The novels I look at deal with colonialism, dictatorship, epidemics, conflict and genocide; I focus on what writing does 'in the wake' (Christina Sharpe). I am especially interested in depictions of survival, and how we might understand notions of vulnerability and strength against discourses of resilience.

These questions come together in my current project, funded by the British Academy. 'Changing Resilience: Alternative Vocabularies' examines the stakes of the omnipresent discourses of 'resilience' and 'crisis', with a particular focus on their colonial undertones. The project seeks to understand the pervasive effects of a discourse that foregrounds assumptions of empowered individualism and bouncing back at the expense of addressing ongoing systemic injustice. I am interested in exploring alternative terms in multiple languages, and focus in particular on textual representations of 'débrouillardise' (a kind of wily resourcefulness). A previous RSE-funded project on débrouillardise in postcolonial novels has led to my most recent book chapters on writing after Ebola and civil war.

One writer who has developed the notion of débrouillardise, particularly as it relates to mobility, is Guinean author Tierno Monénembo. My book on his work, Nomads' Land, is forthcoming with Liverpool University Press, and explores how the author develops a poetics of movement over his five decade writing career.

My research also covers spoken and written testimonies. I study personal stories that emerge from experiences of disaster and the process of constructing those narratives in its wake. I am part of an international research team, RwandaMap, that works to collate existing archives, including testimonies, in Rwanda and the diaspora. We also host an online database for Rwanda Studies researchers. From 2016-2018 I worked on an AHRC-funded project called Rwandan Stories of Change. I collated and researched stories of people who lived through the Genocide against the Tutsi, focusing on themes of community, recovery and growth. These were published in a volume of translated testimonies After the Genocide in Rwanda (I.B.Tauris, 2019). I am especially interested in how testimonies are embedded in multiple overlapping narratives that are social, cultural and political. This exploration of interrelating discourses was the basis of Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change (Liverpool University Press, 2019), a volume of interdisciplinary essays on Rwanda’s transformations over 25 years post-genocide.

I supervise a PhD student in postcolonial women's writing and teach across all years of our undergraduate programme at Stirling. I have been module coordinator for FREU9A1, FREU9A2, FREU9B3, FREU9MC, FREU9CT and LANU10E. I am currently Learning and Teaching Officer for the Division of Literature and Languages. I am a co-director of Postcolonial Studies at Stirling and a member of the Extreme Events research programme.

Other Project

Kluge Fellowship (Library of Congress)

This ten-month fellowship will allow me to continue my research into pan-African festivals as transatlantic axes of collaboration.

Dusangire amateka (Partageons l'histoire): Génocide des Tutsi : le chercheur à l’épreuve des traces de l’extermination

This project, funded by the FSPI (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), contributes to an ongoing project of preserving and disseminating the history of the Genocide against the Tutsi, within my project team RwandaMAP.

Research (1)

French-language African fiction; postcolonial studies; conflict & crisis; migration & mobility; testimony; memory studies.

Please get in touch if you are interested in PhD supervision within any of these subjects.

Projects

Postcolonial resilience? Débrouillardise in African texts
PI: Dr Hannah Grayson
Funded by: The Royal Society of Edinburgh
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Outputs (19)

Outputs

Book Chapter

Laurent Cantet

Grayson H (2023) Laurent Cantet. In: Abecassis M, Block M & Chaplin F (eds.) The Art of Directing. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Verlag. https://doi.org/10.3726/b19439

Book Chapter

Spillover: Writing Ruin in the Wake of Ebola

Grayson H (2023) Spillover: Writing Ruin in the Wake of Ebola. In: Ekorong A, Premat C & Jovensel Ngamaleu A (eds.) Poétiques et politiques du témoignage dans la fiction contemporaine. Comparatisme et Société / Comparatism and Society, 45. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Verlag. https://doi.org/10.3726/b20239

Conference Paper (published)

Violences, stratégies adaptatives et résiliences: le cas du Rwanda

Grayson H (2020) Violences, stratégies adaptatives et résiliences: le cas du Rwanda. In: Mazurek H (ed.) Pratiques Basées sur la Résilience. AMU, IRD, LPED. 4ème Congrès Mondial sur la Résilience, Marseille, France, 28.06.2018-30.06.2018. Marseille, France: Aix Marseille Université, pp. 141-147. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02465380/document

Edited Book

Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change

Grayson H & Hitchcott N (eds.) (2019) Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change. Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 10. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/51708/

Book Chapter

Introduction

Grayson H, Hitchcott N, Blackie L & Joseph S (2019) Introduction. In: Grayson H, Hitchcott N, Blackie L & Joseph S (eds.) After the Genocide in Rwanda: Testimonies of Violence, Change and Reconciliation. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 1-26. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/after-the-genocide-in-rwanda-9781788318280/

Authored Book

Rwanda since 1994

Grayson H & Hitchcott N (2019) Rwanda since 1994. Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 10. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Book Chapter

Introduction: Fictions of African Dictatorship

Baker C & Grayson H (2018) Introduction: Fictions of African Dictatorship. In: Baker C & Grayson H (eds.) Fictions of African Dictatorship: Cultural Representations of Postcolonial Power. Race and Resistance Across Borders in the Long Twentieth Century, 4. Berlin: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3726/b11381

Article

Digital Archives in a Changing Rwanda

Grayson H & Rukesha P (2018) Digital Archives in a Changing Rwanda. African Research and Documentation, 131, pp. 15-23. https://scolma.org/african-research-and-documentation-131-2017-contents/