After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break Up of Britain

by Dix, Hywel Rowland

• ISBN13: 9780708321539
• ISBN10: 0708321534
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Raymond Williams (192188) was a working-class Welsh writer, novelist, and Marxist critic, as well as an influential figure in the New Left and one of the founders of modern day cultural studies and cultural materialism. Williams long argued that literary texts do not simply reflect the happenings of society; instead, the texts actually can cause change as material parts of society. In this volume Williams's theory is applied to a series of readings of texts produced in the years since his death, including works by A. S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie, and Kazuo Ishiguro, as the book explores the contributions of contemporary writers to the devolution and critique of the unitary British state.

Author Biography

Hywel Dix is part-time lecturer in English at the University of Glamorgan.

Table of Contents

General Editor's Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. x
Introduction: Williams and Modernity	p. 1
Towards a Materialism of Culture	p. 25
The Welsh Identity of Raymond Williams	p. 56
Universities - Hard and Soft	p. 85
Postcolonial Britain	p. 111
Williams, Film and the Break-Up of Britain	p. 143
Conclusion: Postmodern Williams?	p. 173
Notes	p. 185
Bibliography	p. 195
Index	p. 209
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