70 Years Old and Still Busy Being Born: Berger’s Public Critic

Dirk Wiemann, University of Potsdam

In 1955, John Berger published a short essay entitled 'Critic's Credo', in which he programmatically outlined the criteria for 'sound and valuable criticism', that is, a politics of how to speak or write responsibly about art. Starting from a distinction between 'studio criticism' and 'public criticism', Berger arrives at a moment of clarity at the end of the piece that involves a declaration of faith; a moment that at first glance seems both to recall and to revise Marx's Feuerbach Theses: the task of the critic is not 'simply to interpret the work', but - no: not to change it! - but 'to assess its likely effect, however small, on life in general'. Implicit in this formula is the 'credo' of art's principal efficacy, 'however small': a credo that makes the short piece a mission statement to which Berger remained faithful throughout his long career as a writer and storyteller. And even if Berger does not voice the Marxian imperative – ‘the point however is to change it’ – it reverberates strongly all through his text, as I will try to point out in my presentation.

I will argue that the ‘Critic’s Credo’ is not only an early condensation of the ethics and politics that drive and underpin Berger’s work in general but that it has acute relevance for current debates about the potentials of a public humanities today.

Dirk Wiemann is professor of English literature at the University of Potsdam. He has an interest in postcolonial studies with a particular focus on South Asia, the social life of genre in contemporary transnational literary dynamics, and the collaborative dimensions of literature. In 2023 he published a monograph on anglophone verse novels and the politics of gaps. He is spokesperson of the research unit collaborations: assemblages, articulations, alliances located at the University of Potsdam, the Humboldt University Berlin, and the Free University Berlin.