Cultural studies and academic stardom

This paper explores the phenomenon of academic celebrity and its implications for cultural studies. It begins by examining recent changes within universities internationally which have produced an academic 'star system', specifically the rise of a managerialist ethos. It goes on to look at the problems which this poses for cultural studies, particularly in relation to its suspicion of conventional forms of academic hierarchy and its self-reflexiveness about intellectual work. The paper suggests that stardom within cultural studies is formed not by individual academics or by the general 'celebritization' of the academic sphere, but by powerful structural forces within the academic field, and argues that academic production needs therefore to be aware of its unavoidable situatedness within the struggle for cultural capital.