4. BANNED BOOKS WEEK
■ Censorship
■ Banning & challenging books: libraries, bookstores, schools
■ Censorship at the point of access: "freedom to read"
■ What about the freedom to create & to publish?
6. What's a zine?
"...a self-published work created for passion rather than profit." -
Independent Publishing Resource Center
Usually small-circulation
Usually handmade/photocopied
7. Types of zines
■ Zines can be:
– The voice of one person
– A collaborative effort
■ Zines can be:
– Handwritten, collaged,
photocopied
– Designed via digital publishing
software
– Online-only
8. Zines can be about:
ANYTHING!
– Topics are as diverse as the interests & perspectives as the people
who write them
9. “I, like many others, was inspired to create a document in
which my own voice could be registered...
...a document that through its materiality, its visual
elements, and its content articulated where I was at that
moment in time.”
-Alison Piepmeier
11. How they started
■ Pamphleteering
– Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1775)
■ Sci-Fi Fanzines
– The Comet (1930)
– Allowed groups of like-minded people to
communicate, share ideas, find community
12. Zines & the Punk Movement
■ 1970s: copy shops = cheaper/quicker production
■ Intersections between punk & zines
– Punk: anyone can make music
– Zines: anyone can write about it
■ Don't see yourself reflected in the media/music?
– Do it yourself!
Image credit:Wikimedia Commons
13. Zines & the Punk Movement
■ 1970s: copy shops = cheaper/quicker production
■ Intersections between punk & zines
– Punk: anyone can make music
– Zines: anyone can write about it
■ Don't see yourself reflected in the media/music?
– Do it yourself!
From the zine "Sideburns"
14. Zines & the Punk Movement
■ 1970s: copy shops = cheaper/quicker production
■ Intersections between punk & zines
– Punk: anyone can make music
– Zines: anyone can write about it
■ Don't see yourself reflected in the media/music?
– Do it yourself!
■ Feel like you're inaccurately represented in the
media?
– Do it yourself!
Dun-dun-dun
15. Zines & the Punk
Movement
■ Riot Grrrl
■ Started in the 1980s with
women in the punk scene
who felt underrepresented
16. Zines & the Punk
Movement
"When I flip through these
American punk zines, all I see are
pictures after pictures of what
looks like the same guy with an
almost-shaved head... God, it gets
boring! Just once, I'd like to see a
photo of a girl playing a guitar and
really working at it...
...there are so few girls
into hardcore here... I'm
TIRED of living through
someone else!"
-Anonymous contributer,
MaximumRocknRoll
17. Zines & the Punk
Movement
■ Riot Grrrl
■ Started in the 1980s with
women in the punk scene
who felt underrepresented
■ Gave platforms to female
punk groups like Sleater
Kinney, Bikini Kill, LeTigre,
etc.
■ Zines > new genre
18. Soviet Samizdat
■ American zines: voices on the margins of the
marketplace
■ Soviet zines: voices on the margins of the state
■ Samizdat = "publishing house for oneself"
■ Blossomed after 1966 Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
– Convicted for "anti-Soviet agitation and
propaganda"
■ Literary works, news, open letters, censored
material, surveys, complaints, religious material,
manifestos
19. Soviet Samizdat
(continued)
■ The tradition of samizdat to bypass government
censorship of the media continues today
■ NyomtassTe Is
– "Print itYourself"
– Hungarian prime ministerViktor Orban
– 3 businessmen in his pocket own Hungary's
18 regional newspapers
Article fromThe IrishTimes
20. Zines today
■ Still going strong!
■ Zine conferences, conventions, clubs, workshops
– Alt Press Fest, Atlanta Zine Fest, L.A. Zine Fest
■ Growing with the internet
– Zine storefronts: Etsy, Big Cartel, personal websites
– Zine blogs/forums: Zines a Go Go,We Make Zines, BrokenPencil
■ Zine collections & archives
– Barnard Zine Library,Toronto Zine Library
25. Let's make a
zine!
■ Grab a template or a
blank sheet of paper
■ Put something on
it! Words, drawings,
collage, poetry, song
lyrics, etc.
■ Themes:
– censorship
– self-expression
– representation