Structure contra Structuralism in Raymond Williams.
This is the second of two linked seminars (Oct 26 and Nov 23) on Raymond Williams’s ‘Structures of Feeling’ and will be available to view online from 8.15 pm on Monday November 23, for 7 days. The link will be sent by email that day. To receive the link please email paul.tod@sjc.ox.ac.uk Please note that there will not be an online discussion with viewers, but comments may be posted on oxfordpsychoanalysis.blogspot.com
The paper considers Williams’s ‘structure of feeling’ concept from the perspective of Williams’s developing opposition to literary structuralism, which he saw as a contributing factor to methodological paralysis in Higher Education in the 1980s. It looks at the influence on Williams of Lucien Goldmann’s ‘genetic structuralism’ and other currents in Marxian literary analysis as he sought a paradigm for ‘structure’ which accommodated meaningful human activity and political change. This paradigm has resonances and suggests parallels with psychoanalysis despite Williams’s declared lack of interest in psychoanalysis itself.

The paper is followed by short comments and discussion from four other contributors: Katie Fleming (Cambridge), Steven Groarke (Roehampton, British Psychoanalytical Society), Keir Martin (Oslo), and Michael Uebel, (Austin, Texas).
Date: 23 November 2020, 20:15 (Monday, 7th week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue: Online only
Speaker: Niall Gildea
Organisers: Niall Gildea, Louise Braddock (University of Oxford), Paul Tod (St John's College)
Organiser contact email address: paul.tod@sjc.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Interdisciplinary Seminars in Psychoanalysis
Booking required?: Not required
Booking email: paul.tod@sjc.ox.ac.uk
Cost: free
Audience: Open to university members and mental health professionals.
Editor: Paul Tod