older distinctions that evaluate the desired convergence of socialism and work-
ing-class culture primary asafunction of theory or ideologyand withoutsuffi-
cient attention to the unique qualities of the aesthetic. The overview of the schol-
arship on working-classcultureonthe remainingpages indicates continuing
resistancetoemotion–this time asacategory of cultural history.Atthe same
time, the scholars’ownemotional investmentinthe subject matter indirectly
confirms the inseparability of politics and emotions in the studyofsocialmove-
ments.
I
The existing bodyofresearchonworking-class cultureinGermanhistory,liter-
ature, and related disciplines deserves to be recognized on its ownterms but can
also bereread in light of its complicated relationship to the subjectofinquiry.
Because of the distinct cycles of rememberingand forgetting shared by thesere-
searchers and their historicalsubjects, suchrereadings cannot follow the stan-
dard conventions of what is typicallycalledareview of the scholarship. Instead
the resonances of the proletarian dream in academicregisters will be used here
as yetanother wayofaccessing the emotional archivesofasocial movement that
playedaformative role duringthe rise of modern capitalism, class society,and
democracy and that continued in thevery different social movements of the
1960s and beyond.Fewresearch areas have been as susceptible to the dominant
narratives about capitalism and democracy,justice and equality, and progress
and crisis, as the studyofworking-class culture. And forreasons that confirm
manyofthe findings of this study, few scholarlydebates are as profoundly
marked by the participants’own investments, both personal and political, in
the conditions of theirterms of engagement.The multi-volume archivalprojects
on workers’literature or socialist theater completed duringthe GDR maybesa-
turated with Marxist-Leninistterminologybut they nonetheless include valuable
sources and documents to be used by futuregenerations. The contested nature of
the workingclass asacategory of critical inquiry is justasapparent in contribu-
tions byWest German historians and sociologists that insist on scientific objec-
tivity as they setout to provethe obsolescenceofclassasavalid category of in-
quiry.Meanwhile, the scholars most invested in the working-class cultureasan
alternative or oppositional cultureuse these forgotten traditions to challenge
basic assumptions about culture and society and propose more expansiveand
inclusive approaches.Yetthey,too,reproduce the blind spots–concerning the
role ofgender and sexuality, the influenceofreligion and folk tradition, and
the affinities between socialism and nationalism–thatcharacterized the work-
AHisto riography of the Proletarian Dream 339