Welcome to the Keywords Collaboratory

From Keywords

This interactive website provides an online space where classes or groups can work collaboratively on projects that take their method, focus, or inspiration from the sixty-four essays published in Keywords for American Cultural Studies. The website is jointly funded by the University of Washington's Simpson Center for the Humanities and NYU Press.

Collaboration is Our Keyword

In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976/1983), Raymond Williams described keywords as important elements in a living vocabulary. Both Keywords for American Cultural Studies and this website follow Williams's lead. Keywords invite research and reflection because debates about culture and society can be enhanced by an increased understanding of the multiple genealogies of their structuring terms and the diverse conflicts and disagreements embedded in differing uses of those terms.

To facilitate keyword projects among classes and working groups, the collaboratory uses MediaWiki, the same technology as Wikipedia. The technology seemed advantageous to us because, by its design, it enables us to host spaces for the sustained development of new keywords projects, while also inviting public commentary on those projects as they evolve.

How to Use Our Website

New to the Keywords Collaboratory website?

Browse through the keyword projects currently under development by clicking on the collaboratories featured in the left navigation.

Review the keywords from the book that are currently available for discussion and debate by clicking on Keywords Under Discussion, and then selecting the discussion tab to post your comments.

If you are an instructor of a class or an organizer of a working group: Look at the assignments and syllabi some instructors have developed to integrate Keywords for American Cultural Studies in the classroom. Or, consider what keyword or keywords you’d like to propose for your class or working group and contact us to set up a keyword collaboratory.

Returning to the website to participate in your class or working group’s collaboratory?

Select your collaboratory from the left navigation to enter your class or working group area. To contribute to your collaboratory, click on the "edit" tab in your collaboratory and then enter your user ID and password.