As the controversy currently comes to a boil about not only the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of the South Carolina State Capitol, but also the use of the defunct flags of both apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by suspected murderer Dylann Roof, flags and their meanings are in the news in a big way.
While oftentimes overlooked as merely abstract representations of political units of varying kinds, flags are in fact highly symbolic and are laden with historical meanings that resonate well into the present. Vexillology is the study of flags and their history, symbolism, and usage. This blog aims to detail and discuss these issues and hopefully shed some light on a topic that has been, at least until recently, fairly underrepresented in public discourse.
For more information, see the Wikipedia page for vexillology.
While oftentimes overlooked as merely abstract representations of political units of varying kinds, flags are in fact highly symbolic and are laden with historical meanings that resonate well into the present. Vexillology is the study of flags and their history, symbolism, and usage. This blog aims to detail and discuss these issues and hopefully shed some light on a topic that has been, at least until recently, fairly underrepresented in public discourse.
For more information, see the Wikipedia page for vexillology.
RSS Feed
