Editing Raymond Williams (section)

=== 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>