Representations of Religion and Culture in Children’s Literature

Literature is an important medium for representing and communicating world views and values. This article focuses on the representation of culture and religion and reveals constructions of identities in children’s literature. The analysis of selected contemporary books from the German speaking area considers the representation of the main characters and their cultural and religious background as well as their faith and practices with a discourse analytical approach. The analysed narrations tend to specify difference by means of cultural and religious characteristics; instead of dissolving those categories, narrations strengthen them. The article states the importance of literature in the mediation of knowledge, self-concepts, interpersonal perceptions and normative paradigms

Religiöse Repräsentationen in Medien für Kinder

Basierend auf einem kulturwissenschaftlichen Zugang zu Religion wird in diesem Beitrag ein theoretischer Rahmen zur Erforschung medialer Repräsentationen für Kinder geschaffen. Religion wird als Symbolsystem konzipiert, das durch die theoretische Verknüpfung mit dem kulturellen Imaginären einen religionswissenschaftlichen Zugang zum Forschungsfeld Kindermedien und Religion ermöglicht. In vier exemplarischen Analysen werden Motive, Narrative und Konzepte religiöser Pluralität herausgearbeitet, um sie anschließend hinsichtlich normativer Vorstellungen in der Repräsentation von Religion und des Zusammenlebens in einer pluralen Gesellschaft zu untersuchen.Based on a cultural studies approach to religion, this contribution creates a theoretical framework for researching media representations for children. Religion is conceived as a system of symbols which, through its theoretical connection with the cultural imaginary, enables a science of religion approach to the research field of children's media and religion. In four exemplary analyses, motives, narratives and concepts of religious plurality will be worked out in order to subsequently examine them with regard to normative conceptions in the representation of religion and coexistence in a pluralistic society.Basée sur une approche de la religion par les cultural studies, cette contribution propose un cadre théorique pour des recherches sur les représentations médiatiques destinées aux enfants. La religion est conçue comme un système de symboles qui, par son lien théorique avec les imaginaires culturels, permet une approche de type sciences des religions dans le domaine de recherche portant sur les médias pour enfants et la religion. A partir de quatre analyses exemplaires, l’auteure identifie des motifs, des récits et des concepts liés à la pluralité religieuse qui sont ensuite examinés en regard de conceptions normatives sur la façon de représenter la religion et le vivre ensemble au sein d’une société plurielle

Trauma, Memory and Religion

How can we screen trauma? This question might lead the perception of documentary films about atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries, like S21 THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE (Rithy Panh, CAMB/FR 2003) about Cambodia, THE LOOK OF SILENCE (Joshua Oppenheimer, ID/DK 2014) about Indonesia or DAS RADIKAL BÖSE (Stefan Ruzowitzky, AT 2013) about Nazi-Europe. A concern that may emerge as we watch films on atrocities is whether these artistic representations perhaps guide the public away from what “really happened”. There certainly is a huge gap between, on the one hand, the immediate experience of the event that lies behind the interpretative screening and, on the other hand, watching the director’s material while neither being a part nor ever having been part of the event. Yet often filmic representations are not intended to show what happened; instead they present case studies to be explored in the present. Often the films contain an inherent critique of genocidal violence and present humanistic perspectives on obedience. Mostly, these films underline the humanity of the victims, seeking to give names, faces and biographies so that they are much more than just numbers. What appears on the screen therefore challenges the audience with a moral question: what would you do

Representations of Religion and Culture in Children’s Literature. An Analysis of othering Processes in Texts and Illustrations

Literature is an important medium for representing and communicating world views and values. This article focuses on the representation of culture and religion and reveals constructions of identities in children’s literature. The analysis of selected contemporary books from the German speaking area considers the representation of the main characters and their cultural and religious background as well as their faith and practices with a discourse analytical approach. The analysed narrations tend to specify difference by means of cultural and religious characteristics; instead of dissolving those categories, narrations strengthen them. The article states the importance of literature in the mediation of knowledge, self-concepts, interpersonal perceptions and normative paradigms

Video: World-views and Values in the Light of Socialisation.

The video highlights aspects of a doctoral thesis about representations of religious diversity in German-language media, which are intentionally produced for children