Thesis (MPhil(Visual Arts. Illustration))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / This thesis is a critical analysis of Afrikaans illustrated children’s Bibles as cultural texts
in Afrikaner nationalist discourse. Christian Calvinism was a distinct signifier in
Afrikaner nationalism and served as an instrument in the construction of Afrikaner
national identity. I propose in this study that Afrikaans children’s Bibles encoded the
principles of Afrikaner nationalism and were used as didactic tools for the configuration
of an exclusive national consciousness. A potential pitfall in the analysis of Afrikaans
children’s Bibles as nationalist texts is the fact that these books were translated from
Dutch or English into Afrikaans. However, the act of translating the Bible, ‘the Word of
God’, into Afrikaans served to confirm the ‘totem’ of Afrikaner Christian-Nationalism.
The appropriation of the Bible re-contextualized the ‘Holy Scriptures’, placing them
within the milieu of Afrikaner national identity and consciousness: language and religion
thus became interrelated catalysts in the social construction of Afrikaner national
consciousness. Finally, my own reinvention of the Afrikaans picture Bible – in opposition
to conventional illustrated children’s Bibles – is put forward and discussed as a
postmodern text that encodes a radically different post-Apartheid conception of identity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/2583 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Barnard, Louis H. |
| Contributors | Van Robbroeck, Lize, University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Stellenbosch |
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