Lacey Schauwecker is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at USC. Schauwecker is working on her dissertation, in which she critiques existing human rights paradigms by exploring screaming in art and testimony in Central America. 

At USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, Schauwecker watched a dozen testimonies from the new Guatemalan genocide collection and noted mentions of screaming and other moments of non-narrative interruption. “I focus on screaming because it is a recurrent trope in a lot of books and photography and performance art about ongoing violence in Central America, including Guatemala,” she said. In addition to screams of terror during violence, Schauwecker observed that screaming also is a form of political resistance.