The illustrated children's Bible as cultural text in the construction of Afrikaner national identity

[摘要] This thesis is a critical analysis of Afrikaans illustrated children's Bibles as cultural textsin Afrikaner nationalist discourse. Christian Calvinism was a distinct signifier inAfrikaner nationalism and served as an instrument in the construction of Afrikanernational identity. I propose in this study that Afrikaans children's Bibles encoded theprinciples of Afrikaner nationalism and were used as didactic tools for the configurationof an exclusive national consciousness. A potential pitfall in the analysis of Afrikaanschildren's Bibles as nationalist texts is the fact that these books were translated fromDutch or English into Afrikaans. However, the act of translating the Bible, 'the Word ofGod', into Afrikaans served to confirm the 'totem' of Afrikaner Christian-Nationalism.The appropriation of the Bible re-contextualized the 'Holy Scriptures', placing themwithin the milieu of Afrikaner national identity and consciousness: language and religionthus became interrelated catalysts in the social construction of Afrikaner nationalconsciousness. Finally, my own reinvention of the Afrikaans picture Bible – in oppositionto conventional illustrated children's Bibles – is put forward and discussed as apostmodern text that encodes a radically different post-Apartheid conception of identity.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University