From dialectics to dancing: Reading, writing and the experience of the everyday life in the diaries of Frank P. Forster
Authors
Feely, CatherineAffiliation
University of ManchesterIssue Date
2010-03
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Show full item recordAbstract
This article is an examination of the reading and writing practices of Frank Forster (1910-98), a casual labourer and Communist autodidact, as revealed in the diaries he kept between 1934 and 1938. One of the most influential texts Forster encountered during this period was The Positive Outcome of Philosophy, written by Joseph Dietzgen (1828-88), a German tanner who had also independently developed a Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism. Dietzgen's work on the relationship between thought and experience appealed enormously to autodidact sensibilities. Recording his reading at the same time as other activities, such as cinema attendance and dancing, Forster was able to reshape Dietzgen's ideas so that he could apply them to the issues most immediately important to him, particularly the pursuit of social and sexual experience. This seemingly idiosyncratic understanding of ‘the dialectic’ can only be understood in the particular context of Forster's life, locality and time. His diaries deserve wider attention as compelling evidence of how one individual combined theory with everyday life to create his own form of ‘self-help’.Citation
Feely, C. (2010), 'From Dialectics to Dancing: Reading, Writing and the Experience of Everyday Life in the Diaries of Frank P. Forster', History Workshop Journal, 69(1), pp. 90-110.Publisher
Oxford University PressJournal
History Workshop JournalDOI
10.1093/hwj/dbp030Additional Links
https://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/1/90.abstractType
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
13633554EISSN
14774569ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1093/hwj/dbp030