Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Telling stories and making history: John Berger and the politics of postmodernism

Mehta, R. R. (1999) Telling stories and making history: John Berger and the politics of postmodernism. Doctoral thesis. University of Leicester.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Abstract: The above named thesis is an inter-disciplinary study which considers John Berger’s multi-media storytelling project, located in the margins of Europe! the postmetropolis/ the canon, in the ‘global’ context of Euro-American postmodernism. This thesis is concerned with the question of how useful ‘theory’ and/or postmodernism might be in the understanding of Berger’s position, and with how Berger’s position might be used to re-locate ‘theory’, and to tell a radical story of postmodernism. The thesis focuses on Berger’s work from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, because it was only after Berger emigrated, in 1974, that he declared himself to be a storyteller. And secondly, because the date of Berger’s emigration coincides with the period when the transition from a modern to a postmodern condition began to be felt. The thesis also focuses on Berger’s relation to Walter Benjamin and his writings about the dead, messianism, and storytelling. The argument advanced is that Benjamin’s - and Berger’s - writings about the dead should be read as emerging from and speaking to a specific historical conjuncture, or constellation; one in which the dominant, (post)metropolitan story of unilinear time and progress is coming to an end
Additional Information: This University of Northampton thesis was validated by the University of Leicester
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR6050 1961-2000
Creators: Mehta, Roger Rajeeve
Department: School of the Arts
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Arts, Science & Technology > Theses (Arts, Science & Technology)
Date: 1999
Date Type: Completion
Number of Pages: 208
Language: English
Status: Unpublished
Institution: University of Leicester
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/2659

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