dungsroman,the novel of education so crucial to conceptions of bourgeois sub-
jectivity.¹³By contrast,WolfgangEmmerich emphasized the operative (i.e., di-
dactic and agitational) function of what he called proletarian self-representa-
tions and interpreted the latter in linewith Lenin’stheory of two cultures–
the theory that every national cultureconsists of two cultures,ahegemonic
bourgeois cultureand aproletarian culturethat,bydefinition, is democratic
and socialist.¹⁴Giventhe unresolvabletension between the pseudo-objectivism
of the chronicle format and the subjectivism of the confessional mode, Georg
Bollenbeck, in themost theoretically sophisticated contribution, proposedLeb-
enserinnerung(life memoir)asamore appropriate term in the context of work-
ing-class culture.¹⁵Unlikeautobiography, he argued, the notion of life memoir
acknowledgesthe difficulty of developingapersonality under conditions of cap-
italist exploitation and recognizes classconsciousness (or the lack thereof)asan
often underestimated part of the problem. Similar arguments have over the last
decades leadtoagrowingpreference for theterm“life writings”in Anglo-Amer-
ican scholarship on thegenre ofautobiography.
Situated within these largerhistories of readingand rereading,the exchang-
es between Lotz and Levenstein inOutofthe Depthraise important questions
about how workers’life writingscan be readtoday: as documents of working-
class empowerment or of middle-classgoodwill?Istheirmain purposeto pro-
mote social reform or socialist mobilization? Are they modeled on bourgeois nar-
rativesofindividual advancement or directed towardacollectivist view of soci-
ety?Can this kind ofwriting be likenedto atherapeutic process through which a
clear sense of self is acquiredorrestored?Ordothe writers merelyproduce the
performances of subjectivity considered necessary for admission to the bour-
geois public sphere? Do the editors import bourgeois literarygenres,including
autobiography, into working-class contexts and for decidedlysocialist purposes?
Or do they use the distinction between literacy and oralityto place folk culture
outside of history and enlist thevoice of the otherinacritiqueofmodernity?
BerndWitte,“Literatur der Opposition. Über Geschichte,Funktion undWirkmittel der frühen
Arbeiterliteratur,”inHandbuchzurdeutschen Arbeiterliteratur,2vols., ed. HeinzLudwigArnold
(Munich: editiontext +kritik, 1977),1: 7–45.
Wolfgang Emmerich,ed. and intro.,Proletarische Lebensläufe.Autobiographische Dokumente
zurEntstehung derzweiten Kultur in Deutschland,2vols. (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1980),1: 9–39.
Lenin develops his theory of twocultures in“Critical Remarks on the NationalQuestion”
(1913),CollectedWorksin (London: Lawrence&Wisehart,1960),Vol. 20:17–51.
GeorgBollenbeck,Zur Theorie und Geschichte der frühen Arbeiterlebenserinnerungen(Kron-
berg: Scriptor,1976), especiallythe introduction.
Re/WritingWorkers’Emotions 145