He was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was a dominant and leading figure within the New Left and wider culture. His contribution on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are important to the Marxist critique of culture and arts. His writings laid the foundations for the field of cultural studies and the cultural materialist approach.
The name Raymond Williams is synonymous to cultural materialism. Cultural materialism in literary theory and cultural studies draws its origin from the work of the left-wing literary critic Raymond Williams. Cultural materialism constructs its analysis based in critical theory, which is in the tradition of the Frankfurt School.
His writings had a lot of power and influence that he was invited to return to Cambridge in 1961, and he was elected as a fellow of Jesus College, and finally became first Reader from 1967-1974, then Professor of Drama from 1974 to1983. He was Visiting Professor of Political Science at Stanford University in 1973. This was an experience that he used to good effect in his still useful book Television: Technology and Cultural Form which was published in 1974. He is a committed socialist and critic and was greatly fascinated in the relationships between language, literature, and society and published many books, essays and articles on these and other