The idleness of academics: reflections on the usefulness of cultural studies

Abstract

The rather depressing starting point for this paper is the all-too-common denunciation of academics, especially humanities academics, as not doing useful work. Rather than engaging in a characteristic critique of the discourse of utility or the deconstruction of its terms—vital as both these projects are—I want to allow the terms of the question, at least for a while. Uselessness is a serious accusation—dangerous, commonsensical, powerful—and a particularly potent and fraught one in the Australian political scene, given both traditional Australian anti-intellectualism and the current attacks on higher education. All the more reason, then, why we should occasionally see what our own investment in the discourse might be, how we might fare within its parameters, and whether we can sometimes put it to work in our favour. This paper, then, proceeds less from a rejection of the discourse of utility than from an ambivalence towards it. But I want to start, briefly, with the spectre of uselessness, in the form of an evasion, an accusation and an insult.