Cultural Materialism: WTF? Raymond Williams, Culture and Structures of Feeling

In this month's episode of What the Theory?, we're looking at Cultural Materialism, an approach to understanding culture developed by Raymond Williams. Foundational to cultural studies, cultural materialism (a close relation to new historicism), draws influence from both Marxist Literary Criticism and Liberal Humanism in order to develop a "sociology of culture".

We'll be taking a look at "structures of feeling" including dominant, residual and emergent ideologies as well as an important work in cultural materialism, Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism.

Finally, I put all of this into practice is undertaking a cultural materialist analysis of 2014's The Lego Movie with a particular consideration of how the film handles discourses of creativity under neoliberal capitalism.

Further Reading

Culture and Materialism by Raymond Williams
US: https://amzn.to/2UdU7jz
UK: https://amzn.to/2NCvR8z

Political Shakespeare by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield
US: https://amzn.to/2EJ3vXr
UK: https://amzn.to/2SxLQpf

After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-up of Britain by Hywel Dix
US: https://amzn.to/2HgH5hV
UK: https://amzn.to/2T8BMbf

[The above are affiliate links. I receive a small kickback from anything you buy which, in turn, helps to support the channel.]

If you've enjoyed this video and would like to see more including my What The Theory? series in which I provide some snappy introductions to key theories in the humanities as well as PhD vlogs in which I talk about some of the challenges of being a PhD student then do consider subscribing.

Thanks for watching!

Twitter: @Tom_Nicholas
Website: www.tomnicholas.com

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