We live in an age of the overworked, and under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid. (Oscar Wilde, ‘The Critic as Artist’)
If the value of literature is never far from the lecturer’s thoughts at the lectern, the times have conspired to keep the elements of its demonstration firmly front of mind, helped along by the nihilism of machine learning, the culture of post-truth politics, the rise of fascism from neoliberalism, and the ongoing ecocide. The reasons why today’s school leavers might accept offers to study in the humanities at an Australian university are hardly self-evident, considering the cost of higher education, rising job insecurity, falling home ownership and a future colonised by public debt. The picture has been further clouded by the education policy of the outgoing Coalition Government. As humanities students braced for life in lockdown in the annus horribilis of…