Over the past decade, publishers' catalogues have showcased a continuing supply of introductory readers, taxonomies and evaluations of cultural studies, largely for teaching purposes. In this article, the author suggests that the current climate of academic publishing has allowed cultural studies' particular investment and commitment to scholarly practice, as communicated through a contagious "affect" in the forms of address adopted in its writing, to disappear from texts, and that this may have significant implications for the future of the field. By taking the university to be the principal site of cultural studies' political ambitions, the author advocates that one of the field's key achievements has been to question the conventions of traditional academic discourse, reworking some of its expectations and functions to keep step with contemporary events. Employing an affective voice of empathy and care, cultural studies has widened the register and the scope of scholarly debate, making the academic vocation a more attractive and likely prospect for different kinds of people. But the difficulty of claiming the significance of these achievements says something about the commercial context in which cultural studies now operates. (Contains 5 notes.)