The Raymond Williams Society

Welcome to the fifth instalment of the monthly Raymond Williams Society blog. This month we have a conference report from Germany. ‘Beyond Crisis – Reassessing Raymond Williams’ Cultural Materialism’ took place at the University of Potsdam earlier this year. It featured speakers from across Europe and demonstrated the broad reach of Williams’ thinking in both a contemporary and interdisciplinary context. One of the organisers, Berlin-based Harald Pittel, has kindly supplied us with this report on proceedings.

Harald Pittel writes…

Many scholars from different generations and various disciplines responded to our call to reconsider Raymond Williams’ complex thinking through an engagement with notions of contemporary crisis. In his opening address in Potsdam, Dirk Wiemann emphasized that Williams’ concept of crisis shifts ambiguously, conceiving it both as “difficulty” and “turning-point”. A crisis causes pain and may be paralyzing, but on the other hand might also encourage political agency and enable an alternative path of development.

Continue reading Potsdam Raymond Williams Conference Report

‘There’s a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems’ – (Noam Chomsky) [1]

Sharon Clancy writes…

Raymond Williams came into my life as a result of work I undertook on my thesis in 2014 on adult education. My PhD supervisor, Professor John Holford, suggested I explore Williams’s An Open Letter to W.E.A Tutors (1961) to understand some of the complexities of the historical place of adult learning and the role of the Workers’ Educational Association. What was immediately clear to me was that Williams was arguing for a form of education for the many and by the many, not led by the elite few. He was deeply sceptical of the notion of cultural or educational imperialism, commenting in his letter that:

‘… adult education is no longer propped up by simple missionary feelings, that the fortunate should help the unfortunate or by simple class feelings, that the odd person should be picked out of the swine heap… the challenge to new and imaginative teaching is constant’.

Continue reading Raymond Williams: Adult Education and the Public Intellectual

On the Raymond Williams Society blog this month we have a podcast of Michael Denning’s Raymond Williams Society Annual Lecture, delivered on 7th March 2018 at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester. During a fascinating hour-long talk, titled ‘Laboring Life: Reconsidering the Meanings of Work’, Michael discusses, amongst other topics, critical theories of work, social labour, Kathi Weeks, Marxist concepts of life, the antinomies of work, biocapital, the life sciences, André Gorz, Homer Simpson, the fetishisation of service labour, the service industry as servitude, Jin-kyung Lee, and the new economy of care.

Continue reading Michael Denning’s Raymond Williams Society Annual Lecture – Podcast

Welcome to February’s instalment of the Raymond Williams Society blog. Apologies for the delay! This month we have an interview with the renowned cultural historian Michael Denning on the influence and importance of Williams ahead of Michael’s Raymond Williams Society Annual Lecture on Wednesday 7^th March at 5pm in Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester, UK. Michael is Professor of American Studies at Yale University and the author of Mechanic Accents (1987), The Cultural Front (1997), Culture in the Age of Three Worlds (2004), and Noise Uprising (2015). He will deliver his RWS lecture on ‘Laboring Life: Reconsidering the Meanings of Work’ and will be presenting research from his forthcoming book The Accumulation of Labor.

Continue reading An Interview with Michael Denning

Welcome to the second instalment of reflections on Raymond Williams to mark 30 years to the day (26 January 1988) since his death. Part One can be found here. Terry Eagleton is the first of three to offer a personal account of knowing or working with Williams as a student while two younger academics, Daniel Hartley and Jacob Soule, suggest important ways in which Williams’ thinking can be adapted for the twenty-first century.

Continue reading Reflections on Raymond Williams – Part Two

Welcome to the first of two collected reflections on Raymond Williams to mark 30 years since his death on 26 January 1988. To begin, Patrick Parrinder offers an edited version of a longer diary piece he wrote for the London Review of Books in February 1988. He is the first of six contributors who knew Williams. There are also four contributions from those who didn’t but whose work continues to be shaped and informed by Williams’ modes of critique. Taken together, these reflections offer personal insights into the life of Raymond Williams as an intellectual and teacher as well as marking a point at which, to paraphrase Towards 2000, we can reflect, look forward, and try to see where we are.

Continue reading Reflections on Raymond Williams – Part One

We are launching a new monthly blog on January 26th 2018, 30 years since the death of Raymond Williams. The blog will be hosted on this page; you can also receive the posts direct to your inbox by entering your email address in the pop-up ‘Follow’ tab at the bottom right of this screen.

To contact blog editor Phil O’Brien email philip.obrien@manchester.ac.uk

All announcements and events will now be posted under the ‘News’ tab where recent posts have been archived.