(Re)Cadrer l’(In)Justice — (Re)Framing (In)Justice
This course examines different judicial systems —punitive, restorative and transitional— through recent novels, films, documentaries, plays, and essays that (re)frame power relations, social norms, and institutionalized conceptions of justice at play in high-profile criminal, terrorist, and genocidal cases. By valorizing new vintage points and adopting alternative discursive lenses, creative works often propose counter narratives that question the judicial categories of truth, evidence, rationality, and the boundaries between personal and collective responsibility. We will focus on how judicial discourses rhetorically frame evidence, facts, and testimonies to construct social profiles, psychologic portraits, rational accounts, and plausible motives, and explore the sharded presuppositions between (auto)biography and judicial discourse, showing how facts do not speak for themselves but acquire meanings through narrativization, performative rituals, and conformity to different discursive norms and socio-political expectations.
The judicial system in France will be explored through the following works: Raymond Depardon 10ème chambre, Instants d’audience (2006), Florence Aubenas L’inconnu de la poste (2021), Justine Triet Anatomie d’une chute (film, 2023), Ivan Jablonka Laëtitia (2016), Alice Diop Saint-Omer (film, 2022), Emmanuel Carrère V13. Chroniques judiciaires (2022) related to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, and Boris Lojkine L’histoire de Souleymane (2024) to address asylum laws. The restorative model of justice will be discussed through Jeanne Herry Je verrai toujours vos visages (film, 2023).
The course will examine the implementation of international and transitional justice in Rwanda’s post-genocide reconciliation process through various documentaries such as Ann Aghion’s My Neighbor, My Killer (2019), testimonies like Esther Mujawayo’s La Fleur de Stéphanie. Rwanda entre reconciliation et déni (2006), and the theatrical works Rwanda 94 by The Groupov, which premiered at the festival d’Avignon in 1999, and Dorcy Rugamba’s 2025 production of Peter Weiss’s play on the Nuremberg trial (1945-46) L’Instruction.