Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism / Edition 1

by John Higgins

Overview

Raymond Williams' prolific output is increasingly recognised as the most influential body of work on literary and cultural studies in the past fifty years. This book provides the most comprehensive study to date of the theoretical and historical context of Williams' thinking on literature, politics and culture.
John Higgins traces:
* Williams' intellectual development
* the related growth of a New Left cultural politics
* the origins of the theory and practice of cultural materialism.
Raymond Williams is an astonishing achievement and will challenge many received ideas about Williams' work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415023450
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/18/1999
Series:	Critics of the Twentieth Century
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	14.50(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John Higgins is Senior Lecturer in English and a Convenor of the Theory of Literature Programme at the University of Cape Town. He is the founding editor of the journal Pretexts: Studies in Writing and Culture.

Table of Contents

Contents, , Introduction, Chapter 1. The Tight Place: Marxism or Literature 1947-1950, Chapter 2. Drama and the Structure of Feeling 1947-1957, Chapter 3. Culture and Communication, Chapter 4. Cambridge Criticism 1962-1973, Chapter 5. Marxisms: Contra Caudwell, Against Althusser, Chapter 6. Towards a Cultural Materialism 1977-1981, Chapter 7. Against the New Conformism 1981-1987, Conclusion, Notes, Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

Reappraises the two dozen or more volumes of academic work produced by the Welsh scholar Williams (b. 1921), who spent his last decades at Cambridge University teaching English and drama. Argues that his engagement with English studies cannot be understood in terms purely internal to the discipline of English, and that he wrote in opposition not only to the official culture of liberal and conservative literary studies, but also the orthodoxies of Marxist thinking on literature, culture, and politics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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