ing soon to be rectified by the Marxist art history that would emerge in the 1970s
on both sides of theAtlantic.²⁴
InGermanistik,the studyofworking-class literature and socialist literature
openedupnew ways of thinkingabout aesthetics, politics, and emotion under
the influenceofCritical Theory and as part of the project of ideologycritique.
The fact thatmanycontributions, perhaps as part of an argument for disciplinary
legitimacy,remained beholdento traditional literary criteria does not invalidate
their significanceatthe time, but instead highlights the dialogic process by
which the provocation of the proletarian dream, includingits heterogeneous as-
pects and contradictory elements, was continuouslyforgottenand remembered,
denounced and celebrated. The Social Democratic infatuationwith the bourgeois
heritageespeciallyduringthe Wilhelmineyears sometimes posedaproblem for
younger scholars socialized into the(Weimar-era)equation ofradical politics
with formal innovation. Unableto fit older sensibilities–especiallythe affinity
for melodrama and sentimentality–into theavailable histories ofavant-garde
art and literature, literaryscholars proposedanumber of conceptual openings.
Seekingasolution within traditionalliterary terms,Witte proposed to define the
workers’literature of theWilhelmine period asafourth literary tradition in ad-
ditionto symbolism, naturalism, and trivial literature.²⁵Meanwhile, culturalan-
thropologists working at the intersection of literarystudies and cultural history
explored the connections between working-class cultureand popularculture, es-
pecially in relation toHeimatkunst(regional art) andVolkskunst(folk art). One
welcome resultofthis productive dialogue between the disciplines was greater
attentionto“the other cultures,”sometimes forgotteninthe preoccupation
with working-class culture, which continue to representvery different oral tradi-
tions, preindustrial communities,and anticapitalist sensibilities.²⁶Last but not
Forexample, see Albrecht Dohmann,Bild der Klasse: Die deutsche Arbeiterklasse in der bil-
denden Kunst(Berlin:Tribüne, 1971); Hubertus Gaßner and Eckhart Gillen, eds.,ZwischenRevo-
lutionskunst und sozialistischemRealismus.Realismus:Dokumente undKommentare: Kunstdebat-
ten in der Sowjetunion von 1917– 1934 (Cologne: Du Mont,1979);and RenateHartleb and Dietulf
Sander,eds.,Worin unsere Stärke besteht:Malerei Graphik PlastikFotografie:Kampfaktionen der
Arbeiterklasse im Spiegel der bildenden Kunst(Leipzig: Das Museum, 1986).Atypical exhibition
catalogueisF.Weidemann,Otto-Nagel-Haus:Abteilung proletarisch-revolutionärer und antifa-
schistischer Kunst der Nationalgalerie. Führerdurchdie Ausstellung(Berlin: Staatliche Museum
zu Berlin, 1984).
BerndWitte,“Literatur der Opposition. Über Geschichte,Funktion undWirkmittel der frühen
Arbeiterliteratur,”inHandbuch zur deutschen Arbeiterliteratur,ed. HeinzLudwigArnold (Mu-
nich: edition text+kritik, 1977),1: 7–45.
See HelmutFielbauer and OlafBockhorn, eds.,Die andereKultur:Volkskunde, Sozialwissen-
schaften und Arbeiterkultur:Ein Tagungsbericht(Vienna: Europaverlag, 1982);Dietrich Mühlberg
352 Afterword