Editing Raymond Williams (section)

== Life ==
=== Early life ===
Born in [[Pandy, Monmouthshire|Pandy]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/01/the-guardian-view-on-raymond-williams-at-100|title=The Guardian view on Raymond Williams at 100|work=The Guardian|date=1 September 2021|access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.swansea.ac.uk/crew/raymond-williams/about-raymond-williams/|title=About Raymond Williams|publisher=[[Swansea University]]|access-date=14 May 2024|last=Williams|first=Daniel G.}}</ref> just north of [[Llanfihangel Crucorney]], near [[Abergavenny]], Wales, Williams was the son of a railway worker in a village where all of the railwaymen voted [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]], while the local small farmers mostly voted [[British Liberal Party|Liberal]].{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=16}} It was not a Welsh-speaking area: he described it as "Anglicised in the 1840s".{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=25}} There was, nevertheless, a strong Welsh identity. "There is the joke that someone says his family came over with the Normans and we reply: 'Are you liking it here?'"{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=36}}

Williams attended [[King Henry VIII Grammar School]] in [[Abergavenny]]. His teenage years were overshadowed by the rise of [[Nazism]] and the threat of war. His father was secretary of the local Labour Party, but Raymond declined to join, although he did attend meetings around the [[1935 United Kingdom general election|1935 general election]].{{sfn|Williams|1979|pp=31–32}} He was 14 when the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out, and was conscious of what was happening through his membership of the local [[Left Book Club]].{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=32}} He also mentions the Italian invasion of Abyssinia ([[Ethiopia]]) and [[Edgar Snow]]'s ''[[Red Star Over China]]'', originally published in Britain by the Left Book Club.{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=31}}

At this time, he supported the [[League of Nations]], attending a League-organised youth conference in Geneva in 1937. On the way back, his group visited Paris and he went to the Soviet pavilion at the [[International Exhibition]]. There he bought a copy of ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' and read [[Karl Marx]] for the first time.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=72}}

In July 1939, he was involved in the [[1939 Monmouth by-election|Monmouth by-election]], helping with an unsuccessful campaign by the Labour candidate, Frank Hancock, who was a pacifist. Williams was also a pacifist at this time, having distributed leaflets for the Peace Pledge Union.{{sfn|Smith|2008|pp=73–75}}

=== University education ===
Williams won a [[State Scholarship (UK)|state scholarship]] to read English at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], [[matriculating]] in 1939.<ref name="ODNB" /> While at Cambridge, he joined the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]]. Along with [[Eric Hobsbawm]], he was given the task of writing a Communist Party pamphlet about the [[Russo-Finnish War]]. He says in (''Politics and Letters'') that they "were given the job as people who could write quickly, from historical materials supplied for us. You were often in there writing about topics you did not know very much about, as a professional with words".{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=43}}

At the time, the British government was keen to support [[Finland]] in its war against the [[Soviet Union]], while still being at war with [[Nazi Germany]]. He took a second (division two) in part one of the [[tripos]] in 1941, and, after returning from war service, achieved [[first-class honours]] in part two in 1946.<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB |title=Williams, Raymond Henry (1921–1988), literary scholar and novelist |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-39847 |access-date=2021-03-22 |year=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/39847}}</ref> He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA degree in 1946: as per tradition, his BA was promoted to a [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|Master of Arts]] (MA Cantab) degree.<ref name="WWW">{{cite web |title=Williams, Prof. Raymond Henry, (31 Aug. 1921–26 Jan. 1988), Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, since 1961 |url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U170468 |website=[[Who Was Who]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |access-date=30 June 2021 |language=en |date=1 December 2007}}</ref> He was later awarded a [[higher doctorate]] by Cambridge: the [[Doctor of Letters]] (LittD) degree in 1969.<ref name="ODNB"/>

=== World War II ===
Williams interrupted his education to serve in the [[Second World War]]. He enlisted in the [[British Army]] in late 1940, but stayed at Cambridge to take his exams in June 1941, the month when [[Operation Barbarossa|Germany invaded Russia]]. Joining the military was against the Communist [[party line (politics)|party line]] at the time. According to Williams, his Communist Party membership lapsed without him formally resigning.{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=52}}

When Williams joined the army, he was assigned to the [[Royal Corps of Signals]], which was a typical assignment for university undergraduates. He received initial training in military communications, but was reassigned to [[artillery]] and [[anti-tank]] weapons. He was chosen to serve as an officer in the Anti-Tank Regiment of the [[Guards Armoured Division]] in 1941–1945, being sent into early fighting in the [[Invasion of Normandy]] after the [[D-Day (military term)|D-Day]] [[Normandy Landings]]. He writes in ''Politics and Letters'', "I don't think the intricate chaos of that Normandy fighting has ever been recorded."{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=56}} He commanded a unit of four tanks and mentions losing touch with two of them while fighting against [[Waffen-SS]] [[Panzer]] forces in the [[Bocage]]. He never discovered what happened to them as a withdrawal of troops ensued.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Williams took part in the [[Western Front (World War II)|fighting from Normandy]] in 1944 and [[North-West Europe Campaign of 1944–1945|through Belgium and the Netherlands to Germany]] in 1945. There he was involved in liberating a smaller [[Nazi concentration camp]], which was afterwards used by the Allies to detain [[SS]] officers.<ref name="INGLIS">{{cite book|last1=Inglis|first1=Fred|title=Raymond Williams|date=1998|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0415187169|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4pC-Fwd-PEC&dq=Raymond+Williams+Concentration+camp&pg=PA93}}</ref>

He was shocked to find that [[Bombing of Hamburg|Hamburg]] had suffered [[saturation bombing]] by the [[Royal Air Force]], not just [[Strategic bombing during World War II|military targets and docks]], as they had been told. He was expecting to be sent to Burma, but as his studies had been interrupted by the war, was instead granted Class B release, which meant immediate demobilisation. He returned to Cambridge, where he found that the student culture had changed from 1941, with the left-wing involvement much diminished.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

=== Adult education and early publications ===
Williams received his BA from Cambridge in 1946, and then served as a tutor in [[adult education]] at [[Oxford University]]'s [[Oxford University Department for Continuing Education|Delegacy for Extra-Mural Studies]] (1946-1961).<ref name="WWW" />{{sfn|Williams|1979|p=12}} Moving to [[Seaford, Sussex]], he gave [[Workers' Educational Association]] evening classes in East Sussex in English literature, drama, and later culture and environment. This allowed Williams to write in the mornings, beginning work on novels and what would become [[cultural studies]].

In 1946, he founded the review ''Politics and Letters'', a journal which he edited with Clifford Collins and [[Wolf Mankowitz]] until 1948. Williams published ''Reading and Criticism'' in 1950; he joined the editorial board of the new journal ''Essays in Criticism''.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=359}} In 1951, he was [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|recalled]] to the army as [[Territorial Army (United Kingdom)|a reservist]] to fight in the [[Korean War]]. He refused to go, registering as a [[conscientious objector]].<ref name="Inglis1995">{{cite book |first=Fred |last=Inglis |title=Raymond Williams |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xm3601WsHl0C&pg=PA81 |year=1995 |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |isbn=978-0-415-08960-9 |pages=81–}}</ref> He expected to be jailed for a month, but the Appeal Tribunal panel, which included a professor of classics, was convinced by his case and discharged him from further military obligations in May 1951.<ref>Smith (2008), p. 330.</ref>

Between 1946 and 1957, he was involved with the film-maker Michael Orrom, whom he had known in Cambridge. They co-wrote ''Preface to Film'', published in 1954, and Williams wrote the script for an experimental film, ''The Legend'', in 1955. This was rejected in July 1956 and he parted company with Orrom shortly afterwards.{{sfn|Smith|2008|pp=368–371}} He wrote a number of novels in this period, but only one, ''Border Country'', would be published.{{sfn|Smith|2008|loc=Chapter 7}}

Inspired by [[T. S. Eliot]]'s 1948 publication ''Notes towards the Definition of Culture'', Williams began exploring the concept of culture. He first outlined his argument that the concept emerged with the [[Industrial Revolution]] in the essay "The Idea of Culture", which resulted in the widely successful book ''[[Culture and Society]]'', published in 1958, in which he coined the term [[structure of feeling]]. This was followed in 1961 by ''[[The Long Revolution]]''. Williams's writings were taken up by the [[New Left]] and received a wide readership. He was also well known as a regular book reviewer for ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'' newspaper. His years in adult education were an important experience and Williams was always something of an outsider at Cambridge University. Asked to contribute to a book called ''My Cambridge'', he began his essay by saying: "It was not my Cambridge. That was clear from the beginning."<ref>''My Cambridge'', ed. [[Ronald Hayman]], 2nd ed., London: Robson Books, 1986, p. 55.</ref>

=== Academic career ===
[[Image:Raymond Williams in 1972.jpg|left|200 px|thumb|Raymond Williams in 1972]]
On the strength of his books, Williams was invited to return to Cambridge in 1961, where he was elected a fellow of [[Jesus College, Cambridge]].<ref name="WWW"/> He eventually achieved an appointment in the [[Faculty of English, University of Cambridge]], first as Reader in Drama (1967–1974), and then as the university's first Professor of Drama (1974–1983).<ref name="ODNB"/><ref>J. P. Ward, ''Raymond Williams'', pg. 8.</ref> He was a visiting professor of political science at [[Stanford University]] in 1973, an experience he used to effect in his still useful book ''Television: Technology and Cultural Form'' (1974).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Raymond |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781134379378 |title=Television: Technology and Cultural Form |date=2003-10-20 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-203-42664-7 |editor-last=Williams |editor-first=Raymond |edition=3rd |location=London |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780203426647}}</ref>

A committed socialist, he was interested in the relations between [[language]], literature and society, and published many books, essays and articles on these and other issues. Among the main ones is ''[[The Country and the City]]'' (1973), where chapters on literature alternate with chapters on social history. His tightly written ''Marxism and Literature'' (1977) is mainly for specialists, but also sets out his approach to [[cultural studies]], which he called cultural materialism. The book was in part a response to [[structuralism]] in literary studies and pressure on Williams to make a more theoretical statement of his position, against criticisms that it was a humanist Marxism, based on unexamined assumptions about lived experience. He makes much use of the ideas of [[Antonio Gramsci]], though the book is uniquely Williams's and written in his characteristic voice. For a more accessible version, see ''Culture'' (1981-1982), which develops an argument about cultural sociology, which he hoped would become "a new major discipline".{{sfn|Williams|1981|p=233}} Introducing the US edition, Bruce Robbins identifies it as "implicit self-critique" of Williams's earlier ideas, and a basis on which "to conceive the oppositionality of the critic in a permanently fragmented society".<ref>{{cite book|first=Bruce |last=Robbins |chapter=Foreword |title=The Sociology of Culture |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |date=1995 |pages=xi}}</ref>

=== Concepts and theory ===
==== Vocabulary ====
Williams was keen to establish the changing meanings of the vocabulary used in discussions of culture. He began with the word ''culture'' itself; his notes on 60 significant, often difficult words were to have appeared as an appendix to ''Culture and Society'' in 1958. This was not possible, and so an extended version with notes and short essays on 110 words appeared as ''[[Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society|Keywords]]'' in 1976. Those examined included "aesthetic", "bourgeois", "culture", "hegemony", "isms", "organic", "romantic", "status", "violence" and "work". A revised version in 1983 added 21 new words, including "anarchism", "ecology", "liberation" and "sex". Williams wrote that the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (OED) "is primarily philological and etymological," whilst his work was on "meanings and contexts".<ref>{{cite book|first=Raymond |last=Williams |title=Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society |location=London |publisher=[[Fontana Books|Fontana]]/Croom Helm |date=1976 |page=16}}</ref> In 1981, Williams published ''Culture'', where the term, discussed at length, is defined as "a ''realized signifying system''"{{sfn|Williams|1981|p=207}} and supported by chapters on "the means of cultural production, and the process of cultural reproduction".{{sfn|Williams|1981|p=206}} Williams explored the word "freedom" in a short essay reviewing ''The Concept of Freedom'' by [[Christopher Caudwell]] (St John Sprigg), and in contrast, [[George Orwell]], both as comrades in the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Raymond |date=18 November 1965 |title="A Young Man's Papers" |work=Manchester Guardian}}</ref> Williams remarks that what Caudwell has to say about freedom is clearly said: that men are free through their social relations, and in escape from them, or in the illusion of escape. Williams continues: "in this sense it was right to organise this selection around this title: it is at any rate here that I feel closest to him, and farthest from [<nowiki/>[[George Orwell|George] Orwell]]."  

=== Debate ===
Williams wrote critically of [[Marshall McLuhan]]'s writings on technology and society. This is the background to a chapter in ''Television: Technology and Cultural Form'' (1974) called "The Technology and the Society", where Williams defended his visions against [[technological determinism]], focusing on the prevalence of social over technological in the development of human processes. Thus "Determination is a real social process, but never (as in some theological and some Marxist versions)... a wholly controlling, wholly predicting set of causes. On the contrary, the reality of determination is the setting of limits and the exertion of pressures, within which variable social practices are profoundly affected but never necessarily controlled."<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Raymond |title=Television: Technology and Cultural Form |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PXSLD8j0kb8C&pg=PA133 |access-date=28 May 2013 |year=1974 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=London and New York |isbn=978-0-415-31456-5 |page=133}}</ref>

His book ''Modern Tragedy'' may be read as a response to ''The Death of Tragedy'' by the conservative literary critic [[George Steiner]]. Later, Williams was interested in the work of [[Pierre Bourdieu]], although he found it too pessimistic about the possibilities for social change.

=== Last years ===
Williams joined the Labour Party after he moved to Cambridge in 1961, but resigned in 1966 after the new majority Labour government had broken the seafarers' strike and introduced public expenditure cuts. He joined the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and wrote the May Day Manifesto (published 1967), along with [[E. P. Thompson|Edward Thompson]] and [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]].{{sfn|Williams|1979|pp=371–373}} Williams later became a [[Plaid Cymru]] member and a Welsh nationalist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.english.plaidcymru.org/our-history/ |title=Our History |access-date=2011-08-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120904123852/http://www.english.plaidcymru.org/our-history/ |archive-date=4 September 2012 |df=dmy-all |website=[[Plaid Cymru]]}}</ref> He retired from Cambridge in 1983 and spent his last years in [[Saffron Walden]]. While there he wrote ''Loyalties'', a novel about a fictional group of upper-class radicals attracted to 1930s Communism.

Williams was working on ''[[People of the Black Mountains]]'', an experimental historical novel about people who lived or might have lived around the [[Black Mountains, Wales|Black Mountains]], his own part of Wales, told through flashbacks featuring an ordinary man in modern times, looking for his grandfather, who has not returned from a hill-walk. He imagines the region as it was and might have been. The story begins in the [[Paleolithic]], and would have come up to modern times, focusing on ordinary people. He had completed it to the [[Middle Ages]] by the time he died in 1988. The whole work was prepared for publication by his wife, Joy Williams, then published in two volumes with a [[postscript]] briefly describing what the remainder would have been. Almost all the stories were complete in typescript, mostly revised many times by the author. Only "The Comet" was left incomplete and needed small additions for a continuous narrative.

In the 1980s, Williams made important links to debates on feminism, peace, [[Ecology movement|ecology]] and social movements, and extended his position beyond what might be recognised as [[Marxism]]. He concluded that with many different societies in the world, there would be not one, but many socialisms.{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}} Influenced partly by critical readings of [[Sebastiano Timpanaro]] and [[Rudolf Bahro]], he called for convergence between the labour movement and what was then called the ecology movement.

The Raymond Williams Society was founded in 1989 "to support and develop intellectual and political projects in areas broadly connected with Williams's work".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://raymondwilliams.co.uk/ |title=The Raymond Williams Society |website=The Raymond Williams Society}}</ref> Since 1998 it has published ''Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism'',<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tree-genie.co.uk/raymondwilliams/PDF/Keywords1.pdf |title=Key Words: A journal of cultural materialism |access-date=2012-02-11 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718182359/http://www.tree-genie.co.uk/raymondwilliams/PDF/Keywords1.pdf |archive-date=18 July 2013 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> which is "committed to developing the tradition of cultural materialism" he originated. 

The Raymond Williams Centre for Recovery Research opened at Nottingham Trent University in 1995.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ntu.ac.uk/hum/centres/english/raymond_williams.html |title=English - Arts and Humanities - Nottingham Trent University |access-date=2012-02-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120125040129/http://www.ntu.ac.uk/hum/centres/english/raymond_williams.html |archive-date=25 January 2012 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> 

The Raymond Williams Foundation (RWF) supports activities in adult education;  In 2024 the Raymond Williams Foundation offers grants and in 2022 celebrated Williams' centenary.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Raymond Williams Foundation |url=https://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/grants }}</ref>  The Foundation was originally formed in 1988 as the Raymond Williams Memorial Fund.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Raymond Williams Foundation |url=http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/RWF.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220031857/http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/RWF.html |archive-date=20 February 2012 |access-date=2012-02-11 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> 

A collaborative research project building on Williams's investigation of cultural keywords called the "Keywords Project", initiated in 2006, is supported by Jesus College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Pittsburgh.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://keywords.pitt.edu/ |title=Keywords Project |publisher=Keywords.pitt.edu |date= |accessdate=2022-12-05}}</ref> Similar projects building on Williams's legacy include the 2005 publication, ''New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society'',<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60544256 |title=New keywords : a revised vocabulary of culture and society |date=2005 |publisher=Blackwell Pub |isbn=1-4051-4132-8 |editor-last=Bennett |editor-first=Tony |location=Malden, MA |oclc=60544256 |editor-last2=Grossberg |editor-first2=Lawrence |editor-last3=Morris |editor-first3=Meaghan}}</ref> edited by the cultural-studies scholars Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris, and the ''Keywords'' series from New York University Press including ''Keywords for American Cultural Studies.''<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://keywords.nyupress.org/american-cultural-studies/ |title=Keywords for American Cultural Studies |publisher=NYU Press |year=2020 |isbn=9781479822942 |editor-last=Burgett |editor-first=Bruce |edition=3rd |location=New York, USA |language=En |editor-last2=Hendler |editor-first2=Glenn}}</ref>

In 2007 a collection of Williams's papers was deposited at [[Swansea University]] by his daughter Merryn, a poet and author.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/ResearchProjects/ResearchResourcesandArchives/TheRaymondWilliamsPapers/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080405214703/http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/ResearchProjects/ResearchResourcesandArchives/TheRaymondWilliamsPapers/|url-status=dead|title=CREW|archivedate=5 April 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tree-genie.co.uk/raymondwilliams/PDF/RWSNewsletter2.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009085729/http://www.tree-genie.co.uk/raymondwilliams/PDF/RWSNewsletter2.pdf|url-status=usurped|title=Raymond Williams Society Newsletter|archivedate=9 October 2011}}</ref>