The Scholar as Labourer: John Berger’s Revolutionary Confabulations

From the Medieval Latin ‘scholaris,’ the word ‘scholar’ has its etymology in school. The broader meaning of ‘learned person’ has been in usage since the late thirteenth century; the further meaning of erudition, character and qualities of a scholar or source of funds for scholarship from the sixteenth century. This chapter examines the exemplary life of one scholar who in some ways resisted all these definitions: the art critic and historian, artist and writer John Berger. He was a person of many parts and in this chapter we highlight some of the aspects of his many achievements that may help us understand what scholarship means within the broader context of cultural and social production: the storyteller, the worker, the critical realist, the seer … Exploring through biography, imagery and texts, the chapter offers a few windows through which to view Berger’s wonderfully varied body of work—and relates them to a broader and more inclusive notion of scholarship.