The literary journal Meanjin will return to the city it was born in that bears its Indigenous name.
The Queensland University of Technology announced on Wednesday it had acquired the 85-year-old journal, whose life was cut short by Melbourne University Press in September.
QUT’s successful bid marked a full circle for Meanjin, which was founded in Brisbane/Meanjin by Clem Christesen in 1940 before moving to Melbourne in 1945.
The QUT vice-chancellor, Prof Margaret Sheil, said the new ownership agreement committed to maintaining the journal’s rigorous standards by safeguarding its editorial independence and the appointment of a dedicated editorial board.
“Meanjin has been instrumental in shaping Australian literary and intellectual culture for decades,” Sheil said. “It has provided a vital platform for critical discussion, a showcase of emerging writers and a valuable training ground for leading Australian publishers and editors. We are honoured to be entrusted with the legacy of this cultural icon.”
A competitive nationwide search will be launched to recruit a new editor.
MUP chair Professor Warren Bebbington said it received a number of offers to acquire the title, but it was QUT’s understanding of the journal’s legacy that put it ahead of the pack.
Guardian Australia has sought clarification from QUT and MUP over who will hold the copyright to the journal’s extensive archives, entitling them to retain royalties that have been the source of a modest but steady stream of income since Meanjin became an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing in 2008.
When MUP announced Meanjin’s demise last year, critics decried the decision as an act of cultural vandalism.
At the time, Bebbington claimed the decision was made on “purely financial grounds,” leading to the redundancy of the staff.
Meanjin’s outgoing editor, Esther Anatolis, declined to comment other than to say she was not informed of the ownership transfer.
It remains unclear whether QUT plans to revive the First Nations and linguistically diverse advisory panel it used in its previous entity.
Meanjin’s former poetry editor, former University of Melbourne associate professor Jeanine Leane, told the Guardian it was an “unfortunate coincidence” that MUP decided to close the journal just as it was moving toward prioritising First Nations writing.
“I wasn’t privy to any of the discussions or decisions as they were made, and I know financial concerns were cited,” she said. “But Meanjin was a not-for-profit publication.”
Bebbington’s justifications for closing Meanjin were greeted with much scepticism, given the journal had recently secured a $100,000 Creative Australia grant. There was speculation at the time that the University of Melbourne council had pressured MUP following a controversial essay by Max Kaiser regarding the Gaza conflict - a claim Professor Bebbington dismissed as “completely wrong”, insisting MUP acted independently in its decision.
The University of Melbourne denied its council played any part in the decision to close the journal, which sparked fierce backlash from the literary community.
Living Treasure Barry Jones and author Thomas Keneally lamented the loss of a “lodestar” for Australian writers. The former Labor attorney general and foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans personally wrote to the chief executive of MUP, condemning the decision as “bone-headed”.
Meanjin will be housed in QUT’s School of Creative Arts, where it is expected to complement the school’s creative writing program.
