Keywords Project

The Keywords Project is a collaboration between Jesus College and the University of Pittsburgh which seeks to continue the work done by Raymond Williams in his book Keywords, published in 1976. A Fellow of the College from 1961-1988, Williams examined the history of important terms in contemporary cultural and social debate as a way to understanding their often difficult and contradictory uses. The Project revisits Williams’s key words, revising his entries, adding new ones, and taking advantage of electronic resources for lexical research unavailable when Keywords was written. An interactive website was launched at meetings in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in January 2011. As well as new and revised keywords and discussions of their contemporary importance, the site will contain a range of related materials; including audio-visual ones in which Williams discusses his work with a variety of scholars (including Jesus Fellow Juliet Mitchell).

The Keywords Project group comprises some fourteen people – philologists, lexicographers, literary and cultural historians, and critics – who meet together twice a year: in Pittsburgh in January, in Cambridge in June. Smaller steering committee meetings are held throughout the year.

Contact details:

Stephen Heath
Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL

Website: http://keywords.pitt.edu/