Tharunka

Last updated

Tharunka
Tharunka 2016 Issue 8.jpg
Tharunka, issue 8 2016, front cover
Type Student newspaper
FormatMagazine
Owner(s) Arc @ UNSW Limited
Founded1953 (1953)
Language English
Headquarters Sydney, Australia
CountryAustralia
Website tharunka.com

Tharunka is a student magazine published at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Established in 1953 [1] at the then New South Wales University of Technology, Tharunka has been published in a variety of forms by various student organisations. At present, Tharunka is published 8 times a year by Arc @ UNSW Limited. The name Tharunka means "message stick" in a Central Australian Aboriginal language.

Contents

History

A 2004 issue, when Tharunka appeared as a weekly tabloid THRNK14212 p001.jpg
A 2004 issue, when Tharunka appeared as a weekly tabloid

The first issue of Tharunka was published in March 1953 by the Students' Union, with Sid Dunk and Harold Spies as editors. [1] Until 1980, Tharunka was a weekly newspaper, switching to a fortnightly magazine format from 1981. In 2004 and 2005, Tharunka returned to a tabloid newspaper format. In 2006, Tharunka returned to the fortnightly magazine format. Since 2013, the newspaper has been published in a tabloid newspaper format.

Tharunka was published by the UNSW Students Union from 1953 until 1992, when that body was replaced by the University of New South Wales Student Guild. The Guild published Tharunka from 1993 until 2006. A new student organisation, Arc @ UNSW Limited, took over publication of Tharunka from 2007, with Tharunka now published by a student team under the steerage of its Marketing Department. [2] Tharunka is managed by a small staff and a wider group of volunteers. Including staff wages, the publication's budget is under $40,000 per year. [3]

Content

The content of Tharunka varies year to year in line with the priorities of student politicians, the editors and the wider contributor base. Tharunka's at times irreverent approach has seen copies seized by police, destroyed by political opponents and censored by the student organisation.

It is traditional for a parody edition of Tharunka to be released as part of the university's annual Foundation Day celebrations. [4] News satire is a regular feature of the publication.

Politics

As the journal of a political organisation, Tharunka's editorial direction was often influenced by the dominant faction within the student body at the time. Where the editors distanced themselves from the agenda of student representatives, conflict was often the result. A plan by then editor Michael Shane to devote an issue to coverage of issues facing men was met with fierce resistance by the Student Guild's governing council in 2000. Rules were enacted to give the Guild Women's Department a right of veto over content. [5] With the end of the Guild and Union, and founding of Arc, Tharunka is now under the auspices of Arc's Marketing Department, rather than a political organisation. However, editorial remains edgy with Issue 1 of 2010 containing the word 'fuck' on its front cover.

In November 2004, the Guild was attacked by Daily Telegraph columnist Michael Duffy for attempting to prevent the expression of support for voluntary student unionism at UNSW. "Student politics is still notoriously corrupt and secretive", Duffy wrote, reporting that "the editors of the student union magazine Tharunka, have been told by the Guild Council ... not to publish articles in support of voluntary unionism." [6]

In October 2010, the Arc withheld the final edition of Tharunka for the year even though 2000 copies had already been printed. The edition had originally included an article on the subject of BDSM sexual practices, which the CEO of Arc refused to publish. The editors complied by withdrawing the offending article, but printed in its place a mocking note making fun of censorship. As a result, the magazine was refused distribution.[ citation needed ]

Notable editors and contributors

Other student media at UNSW

Tharunka is one of a number of periodicals that have emerged from the university.

Digitisation

The paper has been partially digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program project of the National Library of Australia. [15] [16]

Related Research Articles

The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive universities.

Tertangala is the student magazine of the University of Wollongong.

<i>Oz</i> (magazine) Australian satirical magazine

Oz was an independently published, alternative/underground magazine associated with the international counterculture of the 1960s. While it was first published in Sydney in 1963, a parallel version of Oz was published in London from 1967. The Australian magazine was published until 1969 and the British version until 1973.

The Beaver is the fortnightly newspaper of the LSE Students' Union at the London School of Economics, England.

Rowan Cahill is an Australian radical historian and journalist, with a background as a teacher and farmhand, who variously worked for the trade union movement as a rank and file activist, delegate and publicist.

On Dit is a student newspaper funded by the Adelaide University Union and advertising revenue which is published fortnightly during semester time. Founded in 1932, it is the third oldest student newspaper in Australia along with Semper Floreat. The paper replaced its precursor the Varsity Ragge which ran from 1928 to 1931 when it ended because of what On Dit described in its first edition as 'student apathy'. The Varsity Ragge returned in 1934 for a single edition as a rival to On Dit.

Gair Rhydd is the official student newspaper of Cardiff University. It is a weekly, free, tabloid-sized paper established in 1972. Its sections cover local and international news, comment, politics, science, advice, the Welsh-language section "Taf-od", campus life and sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Baxter College, University of New South Wales</span> University residential college in Sydney, New South Wales

Philip Baxter College, University of New South Wales is a residential college at the University of New South Wales in Kensington, Sydney, Australia. Phillip Baxter College and its two neighboring Colleges, Goldstein and Basser, are collectively known as the Kensington Colleges. Philip Baxter college is the largest of The Kensington Colleges. Residents generally stay in Baxter for two or three years before ending their college tenure. A student had to remain at College for two and a half years, to be named Honorary College Valedictorian. Residents are provided with three meals per day during session at the nearby Goldstein Dining Hall, which is shared with residents of the other Kensington Colleges - Basser, Goldstein and Fig Tree Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Student unionism in Australia</span>

Australia's universities are home to a variety of different student union groups, providing a range of political, commercial and other services to students. The sector has undergone substantial change in recent years, with a decline in participation, intervention by university administrations, and the end of compulsory membership arrangements.

<i>Redbrick</i> (newspaper)

Redbrick is the student newspaper of the University of Birmingham. Originally titled Guild News, the newspaper was renamed Redbrick in 1962. As with most student newspapers, Redbrick is not fully independent due to funding arrangements, but is editorially independent as is set out in its charter.

Semper Floreat is the student newspaper of the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. It has been published continuously by the University of Queensland Union since 1932, when it began as a fortnightly newsletter of only a few pages, produced by one editor.

Richard Clive Neville was an Australian writer and social commentator who came to fame as an editor of the counterculture magazine OZ in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was educated as a boarder at Knox Grammar School and enrolled for an arts degree at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Australian political magazine The Monthly described Neville as a "pioneer of the war on deference".

Metior Magazine or METIOR is a student publication of Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. Metior is funded by the Murdoch University Guild of Students but remains independent. The name is an acronym for "Murdoch Empire Telegram Indian Ocean Review".

Pelican is the University of Western Australia's student magazine. It is financed by the UWA Guild with 1,000 copies of each issue published and distributed across metropolitan Perth, as well as to Notre Dame, Murdoch, Curtin, ECU, and Central TAFE. It is Australia's second oldest student paper, having begun publication in 1929.

Opus is a student newspaper published at the University of Newcastle, Australia by the Newcastle University Students' Association (NUSA). Opus was founded in 1954 by then economics lecturer Cyril Renwick, at what was then the Newcastle University College of the University of New South Wales, in the Newcastle suburb of Callaghan. Renwick proposed a student journal to promote student unity and expression. Teaming up with his secretary's husband, George Kirkby, the first edition of Opus was a four-page broadsheet newspaper replete with the refinement and formality of 1950s journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graeme Dunstan</span> Australian activist

Graeme Clement Dunstan is a prominent Australian cultural and political activist. A graduate of Essendon High School, Graeme matriculated in 1960 as dux with honours in maths, physics and chemistry. He is an engineering graduate of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he was President of the Students' Union (1967) and twice co-editor of its newspaper, Tharunka,.

John M. Green is an Australian thriller writer, publisher and company director. He is a former executive director of an investment bank and was a partner of two law firms. Previously a director of publisher UNSW Press, he co-founded Pantera Press, which published his first novel Nowhere Man. Green has also written for publications such as The Australian Financial Review and The Australian. As a company director, he is Deputy Chairman of QBE Insurance and a Councillor of the National Library of Australia.

Heinz Richard Harant was an Australian student activist at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where he was one of the University's earliest alumni and most dedicated supporters. After graduating with a degree in engineering he devoted many years of service to student life on campus. He was instrumental in founding the University's Alumni Association and maintained a lifelong association with his alma mater through membership of various committees, and over 28 years of dedicated service to student life on campus.

The University of New South Wales Press Ltd. is an Australian academic book publishing company launched in 1962 and based in Randwick, a suburb of Sydney. The ACNC not-for-profit entity has three divisions: NewSouth Publishing, NewSouth Books, and the UNSW Bookshop, situated at the Kensington campus of the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

References

  1. 1 2 "University timeline exhibition". University of New South Wales. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  2. Loussikian, Kylar (16 September 2015). "Playboy strips bare past life on campus". The Australian.
  3. O'Halloran, Brett (June 2005) "The Implications of Voluntary Student Unionism Legislation for UNSW An Issues Paper with Recommendations". Accessed 13 November 2006 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 January 2007. Retrieved 13 November 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. Foundation Day Exhibition at UNSW official site. Retrieved 14 December 2020
  5. Korogiannis, Michael (November 2000). "Are some more equal than others?". Tharunka.
  6. Duffy, Michael (13 November 2004). "Forced to subsidise bad food and bullies". The Daily Telegraph
  7. Organ, Michael. "OZ magazine goes digital – and the party continues". The Conversation. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  8. Organ, Michael. "With energy, ideas and cheek to spare, Richard Neville was the boy of OZ". The Conversation. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  9. Neville, Richard (3 December 2013). "Singular artist's mind-blowing voyage in paint". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  10. "bellebyrd: Peter Kingston and Martin Sharp". printaustralia.blogspot.com.au. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  11. 1 2 Lumby, Catharine (August 2015). "Reshaping public intellectual life: Frank Moorhouse and his milieu". Media International Australia. 156 (1): 133–141. doi:10.1177/1329878X1515600115. ISSN   1329-878X. S2CID   149267110.
  12. Kerr, Joan (1996). "Jenny Coopes". Design & Art Australia Online. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  13. Bacon, Wendy (2011). "Being free by acting free". Overland (202 Autumn). Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  14. Student Publications at University of NSW. Retrieved 14 December 2020
  15. "Newspaper and magazine titles". Trove. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  16. "Newspaper Digitisation Program". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 5 June 2013.