Homicidal psychiatrist eats old city academic! (8)
I believe the answer is:
lecturer
'academic' is the definition.
(I know that lecturer is a type of academic)
'homicidal psychiatrist eats old city' is the wordplay.
'homicidal psychiatrist' becomes 'lecter' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'eats' indicates putting letters inside.
'old city' becomes 'ur' (ancient Sumerian city state).
'lecter' enclosing 'ur' is 'LECTURER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lecturer that I've seen before include "University teacher" , "Tutor" , "One discoursing" , "University staff member" , "don provided" .)