Drunken dame in excellent academic life (7)
I believe the answer is:
academe
'academic life' is the definition.
'academe' can be an answer for 'life' (I have seen 'Scholarly life ' mean 'academe' so perhaps 'life' could also mean 'academe'). I'm not sure about the 'academic' bit.
'drunken dame in excellent' is the wordplay.
'drunken' indicates an anagram.
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'excellent' becomes 'ace' (I've seen this before).
'dame' is an anagram of 'adem'.
'adem' inserted within 'ace' is 'ACADEME'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for academe that I've seen before include "intellectual world" , "World of scholarship" , "Educational environment" , "Scholarly life" , "The world of scholars" .)