Quadrant (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Quadrant is an Australia
n literary and cultural journal
. The magazine takes a conservative
position on political and social issues, describing itself as sceptical of 'unthinking Leftism, or political correctness
, and its "smelly little orthodoxies"'. Quadrant reviews literature, as well as featuring essays on ideas and topics such as politics, history, universities, and the arts. It also publishes poetry and short stories. It is published ten times per year and its current cover price is A$
8.50.
Keith Windschuttle
was appointed Editor in late 2007.
, a Polish-Jewish refugee who had been active in social-democrat politics in Europe and James McAuley
, a Catholic poet, famous for the anti-modernist Ern Malley
hoax. An initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, the Australian arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom
, a front group of the United States Central Intelligence Agency
, Quadrant was part of an anti-Communist kulturkampf
.
It has had many notable contributors including Les Murray
, who has been its literary editor since 1990, Christopher Koch
, Patrick O'Brien, Frank Knopfelmacher
, A. D. Hope
, Greg Sheridan
, Barry Humphries
, Peter Coleman
, Roger Sandall
, Tom Switzer
, Peter Kocan
, Andrew Lansdown, and Hal Colebatch
, as well as several Labor and Liberal political figures (including former Prime Minister John Howard
and former Labor Senator John Wheeldon
).
In January 2009, Windschuttle published a fake submission purporting to be written by biotechnologist “Dr Sharon Gould”, a name later revealed to be fictitious. The article, titled Scare Campaigns and Science Reporting, used fraudulent science, including falsified CSIRO research to make its claims. The event later came to be known as the Windschuttle-Quadrant hoax.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n literary and cultural journal
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
. The magazine takes a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
position on political and social issues, describing itself as sceptical of 'unthinking Leftism, or political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
, and its "smelly little orthodoxies"'. Quadrant reviews literature, as well as featuring essays on ideas and topics such as politics, history, universities, and the arts. It also publishes poetry and short stories. It is published ten times per year and its current cover price is A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
8.50.
Keith Windschuttle
Keith Windschuttle
Keith Windschuttle is an Australian writer, historian, and ABC board member, who has authored several books from the 1970s onwards. These include Unemployment, , which analysed the economic causes and social consequences of unemployment in Australia and advocated a socialist response; The Media: a...
was appointed Editor in late 2007.
History
The magazine was founded in 1956 by Richard KrygierRichard Krygier
Henry Richard Krygier , was an Australian anti-Communist publisher and journalist, and a founder of Quadrant magazine....
, a Polish-Jewish refugee who had been active in social-democrat politics in Europe and James McAuley
James McAuley
James Phillip McAuley was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism.-Life and career:...
, a Catholic poet, famous for the anti-modernist Ern Malley
Ern Malley
Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley was a fictitious poet and the central figure in Australia's most celebrated literary hoax. The poet, and his entire body of work, were created in one day in 1944 by writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart as a hoax on Max Harris, Angry Penguins, the modernist magazine he...
hoax. An initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, the Australian arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom
Association for Cultural Freedom
The Congress for Cultural Freedom was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. In 1967, it was revealed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the group , and it was subsequently renamed the...
, a front group of the United States Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, Quadrant was part of an anti-Communist kulturkampf
Kulturkampf
The German term refers to German policies in relation to secularity and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck. The Kulturkampf did not extend to the other German states such as Bavaria...
.
It has had many notable contributors including Les Murray
Les Murray (poet)
Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
, who has been its literary editor since 1990, Christopher Koch
Christopher Koch
Christopher John Koch, AO, Australian novelist, was born in Hobart in 1932. He has twice won the Miles Franklin Award. In 1995 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for contribution to Australian literature....
, Patrick O'Brien, Frank Knopfelmacher
Frank Knopfelmacher
Frank Knopfelmacher , Australian-domiciled political philosopher and psychologist, the subject of nationally famous controversies during the 1960s and 1970s....
, A. D. Hope
A. D. Hope
Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.-Life:...
, Greg Sheridan
Greg Sheridan
Greg Sheridan is the foreign editor of The Australian and a right-wing commentator on foreign affairs.Writing on and from the Asian region since the 1980s, Sheridan is an expert on Asian politics, and has written four books on the topic, plus a book on Australia-U.S...
, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
, Peter Coleman
Peter Coleman
William Peter Coleman is an Australian writer/journalist, former politician and Minister of the Crown in the cabinets of Tom Lewis and Sir Eric Willis. Following Willis' resignation as leader he was made Leader of the New South Wales Opposition...
, Roger Sandall
Roger Sandall
Roger Sandall is an essayist and commentator on cultural relativism and is best known as the author of The Culture Cult. He was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1933 but has spent most of his career in Australia...
, Tom Switzer
Tom Switzer
Tom Switzer is editor of The Spectator Australia, succeeding Oscar Humphries in December 2009. He is also a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney where he teaches American politics and history...
, Peter Kocan
Peter Kocan
Peter Raymond Kocan , Australian author and poet, is remembered in Australia for his attempt to assassinate federal Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell in 1966.-Life and career:...
, Andrew Lansdown, and Hal Colebatch
Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch
Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch , also known as Hal G. P. Colebatch and Hal Colebatch is an Australian author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer.-Personal history:...
, as well as several Labor and Liberal political figures (including former Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
and former Labor Senator John Wheeldon
John Wheeldon
John Murray Wheeldon was an Australian federal politician and briefly a minister. He is mainly notable for his views on Australian foreign policy....
).
Editors
| Order | Period | Editor | Background / comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 1956–1967 | James McAuley James McAuley James Phillip McAuley was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism.-Life and career:... |
Catholic poet |
| 2. | 1967–1990 | Peter Coleman Peter Coleman William Peter Coleman is an Australian writer/journalist, former politician and Minister of the Crown in the cabinets of Tom Lewis and Sir Eric Willis. Following Willis' resignation as leader he was made Leader of the New South Wales Opposition... |
Writer, journalist, and former New South Wales and Federal Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office... politician |
| 3. | 1990–1997 | Robert Manne Robert Manne Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.Born in Melbourne, Manne's earliest political consciousness was formed by the fact that his parents were Jewish refugees from Europe and his grandparents were victims of the Holocaust... |
Resigned after repeated disputes with its editorial board |
| 4. | 1997–2007 | Paddy McGuinness Padraic McGuinness Padraic Pearse "Paddy" McGuinness AO was an Australian journalist, activist, and commentator. He was notable for the evolution over his lifetime of his political beliefs... |
Journalist and self-described contrarian |
| 5. | 2007– | Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle is an Australian writer, historian, and ABC board member, who has authored several books from the 1970s onwards. These include Unemployment, , which analysed the economic causes and social consequences of unemployment in Australia and advocated a socialist response; The Media: a... |
Writer, historian, and board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster... |
In January 2009, Windschuttle published a fake submission purporting to be written by biotechnologist “Dr Sharon Gould”, a name later revealed to be fictitious. The article, titled Scare Campaigns and Science Reporting, used fraudulent science, including falsified CSIRO research to make its claims. The event later came to be known as the Windschuttle-Quadrant hoax.
Editorial Advisory Board
- Bill HaydenBill HaydenWilliam George "Bill" Hayden AC was the 21st Governor-General of Australia. Prior to this, he represented the Australian Labor Party in parliament; he was a minister in the government of Gough Whitlam, and later became Leader of the Opposition, narrowly losing the 1980 federal election to the...
ACOrder of AustraliaThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(Chair) - former Governor-GeneralGovernor-General of AustraliaThe Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
and LaborAustralian Labor PartyThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
politician - Emeritus Professor D. M. ArmstrongDavid Malet ArmstrongDavid Malet Armstrong , often D. M. Armstrong, is an Australian philosopher. He is well-known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the...
AOOrder of AustraliaThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
- an Australian philosopher
- Peter Coleman - former editor, writer, journalist, and Liberal politician
- Miranda DevineMiranda DevineMiranda Devine is an Australian columnist and writer noted for her conservative stance on a range of social and political issues. Her column, formerly printed twice weekly in Fairfax Media newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, now appears in the News Limited Daily Telegraph with...
- columnist for The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph (Australia)The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
- Christopher PearsonChristopher PearsonChristopher Pearson is an Australian journalist who writes for The Australian.He comes from Adelaide and received a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from Flinders University as well as a Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Adelaide...
- cultural and religious columnist for The AustralianThe AustralianThe Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly.... - Imre SalusinszkyImre SalusinszkyImre Salusinszky in an Australian journalist and English literature academic with a strong literary interest in Northrop Frye, a Canadian poet.-Background and career:...
- political columnist for The Australian
Editorial Staff
- Literary Editor: Les Murray
- Deputy Editor: George Thomas
External links
- Quadrant Magazine
- CIA as Culture Vultures, an essay published here in Jacket Magazine, No. 12, July 2000, as an extract from her non-fictional account of the life of James McAuley (see additional reading below)
- Quadrant's 50th anniversary - ABC Radio National Counterpoint 2006 feature interview with Martin Krygier (former Quadrant Director and son of founder), Dame Leonie Kramer AC DBELeonie KramerDame Leonie Judith Kramer, AC, DBE is an Australian academic, educator and professor.-Education:Kramer was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne, where she gained a Bachelor of Arts in 1945, and Oxford University, where she gained a Doctor of...
(former Quadrant Chair), and Paddy McGuinness: transcript located here.