Meanjin

*Meanjin*
Editor	Esther Anatolitis
Publisher	Melbourne University Publishing
Founder	Clem Christesen
First issue	December 1940
Country	Australia
Based in	Melbourne
Website	meanjin.com.au
ISSN	0815-953X
OCLC	3972868

Meanjin (/miˈændʒɪn/), formerly Meanjin Papers and Meanjin Quarterly, is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines. Established in 1940 in Brisbane, it moved to Melbourne in 1945 and as of 2008 is an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. A print edition is produced quarterly, while it is updated continuously online.

History

The magazine was established in December 1940^[1] in Brisbane, by Clem Christesen^[2]^[3] as Meanjin Papers. The name is derived from the Turrbal/Yagara word for land on which the city of Brisbane is located.^[4]^[5]

It moved to Melbourne in 1945 at the invitation of the University of Melbourne.^[6] Artist and patron Lina Bryans opened the doors of her Darebin Bridge House to the Meanjin group: then Vance and Nettie Palmer, Rosa and Dolia Ribush, Jean Campbell, Laurie Thomas, and Alan McCulloch. There they joined the moderates in the Contemporary Art Society (Norman Macgeorge, Clive Stephen, Isobel Tweddle and Rupert Bunny, Sybil Craig, Guelda Pyke, Elma Roach, Ola Cohn and Madge Freeman, and George Bell). Bryans created a free circle and was able to give the liberal, conservative modernist position in Melbourne a more vital character and a freer base than it would otherwise have had.^[7]

The magazine was renamed Meanjin in 1947, then to Meanjin Quarterly in 1961, and became Meanjin again in 1976.^[8]^[9]

Since 2008 and as of 2021^[update] Meanjin is published as an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.^[6]

In 2016, Meanjin lost its funding by the Australia Council, in its four-year cycle of funding.^[10]^[11]

Description

Meanjin is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines.^[11]^[12]^[a]

It is a scholarly, Peer-reviewed journal, which "manag[es] to be serious and playful at once". Itincludes philosophy,^[16] poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, and other forms of writing, and also produces podcasts.^[17]^[6] A print edition is produced quarterly, while the online edition is updated on a daily basis.^[18]

Notable contributors

The magazine has been the vehicle for important new work by Australian writers A. D. Hope, James McAuley, Douglas Stewart, Judith Wright, Patrick White, Randolph Stow, Joan London, Frank Moorhouse, and Les Murray. Special issues have been devoted to Joseph Furphy and Vance Palmer, among others.^[19]

Editors

1940–1974: Clem Christesen
1974–1982: Jim Davidson
1982–1987: Judith Brett
1987–1994: Jenny Lee
1994–1998: Christina Thompson
1998–2002: Stephanie Holt
2002–2008 Ian Britain
2008–2011 Sophie Cunningham
2011–2012 Sally Heath
2013–2015 Zora Sanders
2015–2022 Jonathan Green^[6]^[20]
2022–present Esther Anatolitis^[21]

During Christina Thompson's editorship, in 1995 Cassandra Pybus was guest editor for Issue 2, titled O Canada. It features both Canadian and Australian writing including an essay by Gerry Turcotte, a Canadian writer teaching at the University of Wollongong and co-editor of Australia Canada Studies. During Esther Anatolitis's editorship, in 2023 Eugenia Flynn (Larrakia and Tiwi) and Bridget Caldwell-Bright (Jingle and Mudburra) were guest editors of the journal's first-ever all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander edition, Meanjin 82.3, Spring 2023.^[22]

Poetry editors

mid-to-late 1970s: Kris Hemensley
1979–1982: Judith Rodriguez
1987–1994: Philip Mead
1994–1997: Laurie Duggan
1998: Brian Henry
1998–2000: Coral Hull
2000–2005: Peter Minter
2005–2015: Judith Beveridge
2015–2023: Bronwyn Lea
2023–present: Jeanine Leane

Footnotes

^ Hermes, published by the University of Sydney Union, was established in 1886,^[13] but has not been published continuously;^[14] Southerly was first published in September 1939.^[15]

References

^ "Australian Magazines of the Twentieth Century". AustLit. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
^ Laurie Clancy (2004). Culture and Customs of Australia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-313-32169-6. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
^ "Australian Literary Journals". Sudo Journal. 19 March 2018. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ "Meanjin debacle: erasing Aboriginal words in order to highlight white women's appropriation". NITV.
^ "Makunschan, Meeanjan, Miganchan, Meanjan, Magandjin". Meanjin. 14 June 2023. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "About". Meanjin. 7 April 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
^ Forwood, Gillian (2003). "Chapter 3. Darebin Bridge House and the Art Establishment 1940–1945". Lina Bryans: Rare Modern, 1909–2000. Carlton, Victoria: Miegunyah Press. ISBN 9780522850376.
^ Australian Poets and Their Works, by William Wilde. Oxford University Press, 1996
^ "Meanjin [catalogue entry]", Trove, University of Melbourne, 1977
^ "Literary magazines 'radically overlooked' by Australia Council". ArtsHub Australia. 14 April 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ ^a ^b Armstrong, Judith (19 May 2016). "Is this the final chapter for one of Australia's oldest literary journals?". InDaily. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ Tan, Monica (12 May 2016). "Literary magazine Meanjin may close after losing Australia Council funding". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ "Hermes : an undergraduate's magazine". University of Sydney Library. 13 January 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ "Hermes : an undergraduate's magazine". Catalogue. Retrieved 12 October 2024. Vol. 1, no. 1 (Thursday July 29 1886)-v. 10, no. 7 (Thursday Dec.13 1894) ; New issue, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Apr. 26th [1895])-[1969] ; New issue, Vol. 1, no. 1 (1985)-.
^ "Southerly : the magazine of the Australian English Association, Sydney". Catalogue. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ Annear, Robyn (1 October 2013). "Puzzling the purpose of Australian literary magazines". The Monthly. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ "Editions". Meanjin. 16 December 2021. Archived from the original on 8 February 2022. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
^ "Meanjin". Melbourne University Publishing. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
^ W. H. Wilde; Joy Hooton; Barry Andrews, eds. (1994). The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 525. ISBN 019553381X.
^ "Green to Leave Meanjin". Books+Publishing. 17 May 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
^ "Anatolitis appointed Meanjin editor". Books+Publishing. 10 October 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
^ "Meanjin announces Eugenia Flynn and Bridget Caldwell-Bright as Guest Editors of First Nations edition". Meanjin. 2 February 2023. Retrieved 29 April 2024.