The Raymond Williams Society

Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, the journal of the Raymond Williams Society, seeks contributions for its 2024 issue.

Key Words is committed to developing the tradition of cultural materialism derived from the founding analysis of culture and society in the work of Raymond Williams. The journal provides a forum for radical thought on history and politics, and explores the role of literary, media, and cultural forms in the contemporary global era.

Following recent themed issues on topics such as ‘Working-Class Writing’ (2020), ‘Countercultural Legacies’ (2021), ‘Raymond Williams and World Literature’ (2022) and ‘Raymond Williams: The Centenary Issue’ (2023), the editorial board now issue an open call for submissions for 2024. We invite contributions that engage with any aspects of Williams’s work and intellectual legacy, and with the cultural materialist tradition more broadly.

In the first instance, we invite potential contributors to submit an abstract (500 words max) by 31st January 2024. Potential contributors will be notified of the editors’ decisions by mid-February. Article manuscripts (6000-8000 words) will be due 31st May 2024 and will be subject to peer review.

Previous issues of the journal can be viewed here. Abstracts and enquiries should be sent to Elinor Taylor, e.taylor@westminster.ac.uk, for consideration by the editorial board.

We are delighted to announce that this year’s annual society lecture will be given by Dr Ingrid Hanson, University of Manchester, on Wednesday 18th October at 5pm, Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester City Centre.

Title: Slow reading and the processes of protest: nature, culture, and conscientious objection

Abstract: In a moment when protest is being vilified and closed down in the name of public order, what can we learn from the writings, the solidarity and the internal disagreements of the protestors and conscientious objectors (COs) of the First World War (and from what we don’t know about them)? What does ‘a belief in collective security’, to borrow Raymond Williams’s phrase from his own statement of conscientious objection to the Korean War, look like? How does it relate to pacifism and internationalism, to war, racism, protest and community, human and non-human? This talk will draw on published and unpublished writings of First World War COs and their supporters, from Fenner Brockway to Vernon Lee, to consider the ways slow, close attention to the literature of the past and to ‘the real multiplicity of things and living processes’ in Williams’s phrase, that make up the natural world and its relationship to humans and human labour, is used to challenge or expose processes of domination and subordination.

The lecture will start at 5pm. It is free and open to all. No need to book. All enquiries to ben.harker@manchester.ac.uk.

Address: Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, 29 Cross Street, Manchester, M2 1NL.

Ingrid Hanson is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester. She is author of William Morris and the Uses of Violence (Anthem Press, 2013), co-editor of Poetry, Politics and Pictures: Culture and Identity in Europe, 1840-1914 (Peter Lang, 2013), and editor of a forthcoming (2023) Oxford University Press edition of William Morris’s works. She has published articles and book chapters on aspects of late-Victorian socialist journalism and culture, utopianism and peace protest, and has spoken on Radio 4’s In Our Time and Radio 3’s The Essay about her research. Her current project, a monograph provisionally entitled Disturbing the Peace, 1848-1930, examines the constitutive role of antiwar and pro-peace literature, song, protest and lament in British culture. She has disturbed the peace herself in protests against war, unjust working conditions, and the detention of asylum seekers, among other matters. 

The latest issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, edited by Daniel Hartley, is titled ‘Raymond Williams and World Literature’. We’re delighted to be able to share with you an extract from Daniel’s 6000-word introduction to the special issue which also includes essays by Sandeep Banerjee, Rena Jackson, Maria Elisa Cevasco, Virginia L. Conn, and Shintaro Kono. Many thanks to Elinor Taylor for overseeing the production of the issue. It will be posted out to members in the new year. To receive a copy make sure you have renewed your membership or joined the society by 31st December 2022. You can join here.

Continue reading Raymond Williams and ‘World Literature’

On the blog this month we have an interview with Raymond Williams, conducted by Italian academic Paola Splendore in the late 1970s in Cambridge and published in Ombre Rosse (in Italian) and Anglistica (in English). Williams had visited Naples in 1972, following the translation of Culture and Society (in 1968) and on the invitation of Fernando Ferrara and Lidia Curti. Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall had spoken at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples and recommended Williams to Ferrara and Curti (see Ferrara, ‘Raymond Williams and the Italian Left’ in Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives, ed. Terry Eagleton, Polity, 1989). Splendore translated both The Long Revolution (in 1979) and Problems in Materialism and Culture (in 1983) into Italian, while other translated works include Marxism and Literature (in 1979), Culture (in 1983), and Television (in 1981). More recently, Border Country was published in Italy by PaginaUno. Many thanks to Paola Splendore for allowing the Raymond Williams Society to re-publish this fascinating insight into Williams’s thinking on Cultural Studies, Marxism, and Psychoanalysis.

Continue reading Cultural Studies, Marxism, and Psychoanalysis: Paola Splendore interviews Raymond Williams (1978)

Originally published in The English Magazine in the spring of 1979 and titled ‘Making it Active’, we are delighted to be able to make available this difficult to find interview with Raymond Williams, thanks to the generosity of interviewer Ken Worpole. It’s the first of four interviews to be published as monthly blogs as the society concludes the centenary celebrations ahead of Williams’s birthday in August.

Continue reading The Politics of Reading, Writing, and Form: Ken Worpole interviews Raymond Williams (1979)

We are delighted to announce that registration is now open for our centenary conference in Manchester on 22-23 April 2022. You can book your place and check out the schedule here. We will have keynotes from Rhian E. Jones, Daniel G. Williams, and the Stuart Hall Foundation, along with the book launch of Culture and Politics by Williams (edited by Phil O’Brien), the performance of Yes! Yes! UCS! by Townsend Theatre Productions, and 12 panels over two days.

Continue reading ‘Raymond Williams @ 100: A Centenary Conference’ – Schedule Released and Registration Open!

This week saw the publication of Culture and Politics: Class, Writing, Socialism, a new collection of essays by Raymond Williams. On the blog we have an exclusive short extract from the book’s introductory essay by editor Phil O’Brien. Culture and Politics, published by Verso, contains five previously unpublished essays alongside five uncollected pieces, including material on Herbert Read (a lost chapter from Culture and Society), Marxism, Popular Culture, working-class writing, Pierre Bourdieu, and modernism.

Continue reading Raymond Williams on Culture and Politics: An Introduction (Extract)

There’s just one week left to get abstracts and panel proposals in for ‘Raymond Williams @ 100: A Centenary Conference’ to be held in Manchester on Friday-Saturday 22-23 April 2022. They should be no longer than 250 words (1000 words for panels) and emailed to raymondwilliamssocietyrws@gmail.com by Friday 17^th December. The finalised conference schedule will be announced in late January 2022.

Continue reading Reminder: Call for Papers for Raymond Williams @ 100: A Centenary Conference

On Wednesday 17th November the society will host the final event in the online autumn series to celebrate Raymond Williams’s centenary. Our chair Ben Harker will be joined by Paul Stasi, the editor of a new book Raymond Williams at 100, alongside Madhu Krishnan and Anna Kornbluh, who have contributed chapters titled ‘Structures of Feeling, Late Capitalism and the Making of African Literature in the Global Literary Marketplace’ and ‘Mediation Metabolized’, respectively. Stasi’s chapter is on ‘Inexplicable Goodness: Raymond Williams, Charles Dickens and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness‘. The free talk will start at 6pm (GMT) and is hosted on Zoom with the link to join here. There’s no need to register, simply click on the relevant link at the start time.

Continue reading ‘Raymond Williams at 100’ – A Panel Discussion

This Wednesday (October 13th), Daniel Hartley will deliver the second event in our Raymond Williams Centenary 2021 Online Autumn Series. Daniel will be discussing ‘Crisis, Method, and Culture’ in the work of Williams, focusing specifically on crisis as a mode of thinking about culture, via an engagement with class, Thomas Hardy, and Louis Althusser. He will also offer reflections on contemporary debates around the ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘re-peasantization’ struggles. The free talk will start at 6pm (BST) and is hosted on Zoom with the link to join here. There’s no need to register, simply click on the relevant link at the start time.

Continue reading Daniel Hartley on Raymond Williams: ‘Crisis, Method, and Culture’