A Voice of Vigilance: Meaghan Morris, Anecdotal Critique and the Politics of Academic Speech

Abstract

In light of the changing conditions for contemporary academic practice drawn out in the previous chapter, I want to conclude this account of key cultural studies voices by considering a writer who for the great bulk of her career remained suspicious of university affiliation (not to mention the dominant mode of cultural studies practice). Closing this book reflecting on the trajectory of Australian critic Meaghan Morris I am not only paying respect to the feminist ideas which inflect my own approach to cultural studies, I seek to contemplate both the possibilities and challenges Morris indicates for the future of cultural studies and its university location. To the extent that Morris moves towards an association with academia, I will suggest the arguments she makes in choosing this professional path can be seen as further indication of the very different forms of intellectual practice now welcome in the contemporary university. While my previous chapter may have paid an inordinate amount of attention to the problems affecting cultural studies’ location in an increasingly corporatised university, Morris’s perspective balances these realities with a historically mindful assessment of the new opportunities these changes make possible — particularly for women, whose participation in university life has always been subject to others’ discretion.KeywordsCultural StudyAcademic PracticeScholarly DiscourseSpeaking PositionScholarly PracticeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.