Meanjin is an Australian literary journal which has been suddenly shut down by its publisher, Melbourne University Press. They say the closure, which comes following no special appeals for subscribers or attempts to “save” the publication by its publisher, is on “purely financial grounds”.
A rally is happening at the MUP office, at 715 Swanston St, Carlton, this Thursday morning at 9am.
I shared an message on social media about the rally, and a couple of people asked me to set it to “Public” so they could share it too.
I thought, while I did that, I would also make a bit more explicit why I care about Meanjin closing.
In the media, think-pieces about the closure bemoan our stupefying culture, sadness over brutish capitalism, arts orgs run by boards made up of lawyers and bank execs instead of artists. They are correct! That is shit.
Also, according to reporting (Crikey broke the story):
- The magazine was run by two paid roles, both part time.
- It receives various grant income to help support it, including a $100,000 Creative Australia grant recently.
- Former chief executive of MUP, Louise Adler, says “The costs of running Meanjin were insignificant in the university’s budget.”
- Meanjin has published pieces critical of Zionism by Randa Abdel-Fattah and Max Kaiser of the Jewish Council of Australia. Kaiser’s, “Jews, antisemitism and power in Australia”, called out the Executive Council of Australian Jewry specifically as a “disgrace”.
- Crikey “understands” Meanjin has been under sustained pressure from the Melbourne University Council board. No one involved is speaking publicly about this.
I would not like to think this is happening for the same reason journalist Antoinette Lattouf was sacked by the ABC, a group of writers was sacked by the State Library of Victoria, pianist Jayson Gillham was sacked by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, etc.
Many arts orgs have closed in Aus over the last ten years or so, a lot of them hubs for activity that either paid a lot of artists (supporting the ecosystem) or brought them together (also very valuable).
Some of them were major cultural institutions. Open Channel was one of those, for film/TV. Channel 31 almost became a shut down institution (and still might).
I don’t automatically think that institutions should last. A lot of the harmful things people do to other people are in the name of preserving some institution.
In this case, it looks like we might be seeing an institution shutting itself down in order to harm people. And to silence public discussion about people who are being harmed.