Zines - self-published, hand-made, lo-fi, fast
About this session
Date: Wednesday 29th January 2025, 2-2.45 (FAB Media Symposium Space)
Presenters: Carys Hill (Sociology), Rebecca Capel (History), Robert O'Toole
Main follow-up contact: Robert O'Toole
Overview:
"Zines are quirky, individualized booklets filled with diatribes, reworkings of pop-culture iconography, and all variety of personal and political narratives. They are self-produced and anti-corporate. Their production, philosophy, and aesthetic are anti-professional." (Piepmeier 2009: 2)
Carys Hill is a zine-maker/zine-lover who uses zines as a research method in her doctoral research and has a forthcoming chapter on zines with Dr Tori Cann titled "Scruffy and Imperfect: Orienting Working-Class Knowledges In and Through Feminist Zine-Making".
Rebecca Capel won the DAHL Showcase as an undergrad with her zine Cobwebs (about the late 80s feminist zine of the same name), as is now undertaking a PhD in History researching 'Young Women's Experiences of Sex and Romance in Britain, 1650-1750'.
Zines have been popular, although always deliberately "underground", for decades. In 1993 Robert O'Toole and Robin Mackay produced several editions of the radical philosophy and culture zine ***collapse.
Rebecca and Carys show how we should also take the medium in itself seriously as a subject of research. In this session we explore reading, making, and researching zines.
Resources and further readings
- Example zines
- Cobwebs by Rebecca CapelLink opens in a new window - a zine about diy feminist media of the 80s and 90s (DAHL Showcase winner)
- Making and collecting
- Zine Making TutorialLink opens in a new window
- Tiny Zine Swap ShopLink opens in a new window - resources for running zine workshops, especially for young people, but useful for all.
- Zines: What are they? Why are they important? And how do you create one?Link opens in a new window by Eilidah Sawyers, International Magazine Journal.
- Collectable zines for sale online shopLink opens in a new window.
- Zines for sale on EtsyLink opens in a new window (beautiful designs on totally diverse topics).
- Researching zines
- Zines as a Research MethodLink opens in a new window, presentation by Carys Hill.
- Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing FeminismLink opens in a new window by Alison Piepmeier (available to staff and students via JSTOR).
- "Journeying the Page: The psychogeography of text and image in the zineLink opens in a new window" by Tanja Kap.
- CUNY page about zinesLink opens in a new window, with many useful links, and info specifically about Riot Grrrl era zines.
- Illinois University pages about zinesLink opens in a new window (including info about Situationism and Punk).
- Journals, magazines and fanzines, 1958-1991Link opens in a new window (anarchist and alternative publications) in the Modern Records Centre archive.
- Zine makers
- Interview with artistic zine maker Mimi Thi NguyenLink opens in a new window, Art Now (on YouTube).
- Interview with Robin MackayLink opens in a new window (chief editor and CEO of Urbanomic Press) including memories of creating the ***collapse pop philosophy zine.