Tradition, inovation and historicity in Raymond Williams cultural materialism

• Grant number: 17/08999-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: February 29, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Theory and Philosophy of History
• Principal Investigator: Silvana Barbosa Rubino
• Grantee: Carla Rocha Baute
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/06742-2 - Tradition, inovation and historicity in Raymond Williams Cultural Materialism, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

This research aims to analyse the contribution of the welsh thinker Raymond Williams (1921-1988) within cultural theory in the second half of the 20th century. From a perspective that emphasised the complex and intrinsic relations between culture and society, emerged Cultural Materialism. By defining culture as a social and material process, Williams was fundamental for the foundation of Cultural Studies and had a central role in the New Left. Articulated between two instances - the study of the text itself and the insertion of Williams in the intellectual field of the epoch -, our investigation has as its central goals to analyse the development of his theoretical formulations through out his career in important selected works, as well as to trace back his influences and distance regarding the early 20th western Marxism thought, that had among its great names Gyorgy Lukacs e Antonio Gramsci. Going beyond the importance of this subject within intellectual history, the connections between cultural analysis and historical development were fundamental aspects in Williams' thinking and a in depth study is yet to be done in the field of history. Because even him being a literary critic and not a historian by profession, an investigation of the way historical development appears in his work can contribute to the understanding of the different interpretations that handled with the passage of time and the cultural manifestations, and to its limit, to social knowledge. The concern with the position that historical transformation occupied in Williams' intellectual legacy will pass through the development of this research, that looks for in the text as well as in the context, elements for its execution and pertinence. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

BAUTE, Carla Rocha. Tradition, innovation and historicity in Raymond Williams' Cultural Materialism. 2020. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.