'Over the last couple years, declarations of a crisis in the humanities have started to become shrill. As Joel Barnes observed in 2020, in Australia such pronouncements are at least partly a response to the 115 per cent increase in the cost of student contribution to humanities degrees since the passing of the so-called Jobs Ready Legislation package 2020. Apart from a BA majoring in English or Languages, a Bachelor of Arts at most universities in Australia will now cost a student $45,000.' (Introduction)
'Over the past decade, arts policy has been dominated by an increasingly incoherent ‘creative industries’ mindset that places artistic labour in an entrepreneurial framework, ultimately a private-sector concern. The Australia Council has reflected this turn, slowly drifting from the language of public funding and towards ‘investment’.' (Introduction)
