Teaching versus research? Cultural studies and the new class politics in knowledge

Reflecting on a personal experience of 'pre-professional' university education and reluctant engagement with Cultural Studies as an academic project, this article examines the now ambiguous role of undergraduate education under neo-liberal management regimes. Arguing that a 'new class politics in knowledge' is emerging with the transnational policy-sharing and international student exchange schemes with which diverse governmental cultures are responding to globalization, Morris suggests that the undergraduate classroom is becoming a 'frontier' of struggle over the future. Teaching cultural studies to undergraduates in a liberal arts environment is one way in which the discipline's emphasis on local knowledge can be put to institutionally creative uses.