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'Why study Australian literature? This question has been debated for a century by academics, creative writers, and students. An examination of these debates, which have occurred over the last hundred years, shows that participants on all sides have quite different values. Some put ‘the discipline’ first, suggesting that literary studies cannot – or must – make room for local writing. Others work from economic or nationalist premises: the nation cannot – or must – make money available to promote local writers and study of their work. This chapter examines these debates, while reflecting on the problems of finding forms of data to develop a historical narrative that accurately accounts for past and present. It concludes that the study of Australian literature in Australian universities was at its healthiest in the last quarter of the twentieth century, while more recently, a sharp decline in the study of reading has been counteracted by an efflorescence in the study of creative writing.'
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