[Commlist] CfP: Zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures [Two-day online conference

Theme: A two-day conference exploring zines and self-publishing in 
Chinese cultures*. The conference encourages submissions from any 
intellectual, academic or artistic perspective, and we further encourage 
contributions that explore zines and self-publishing related to feminist 
perspectives and LGBTQI+ themes.


*The conference focuses on zines and self-publishing cultures related to 
Greater China and China in the broadest conception. This includes, but 
is not limited to, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, speakers of 
Chinese related languages or languages spoken in Greater China and the 
Chinese diaspora.


Date: January 14th and 21st

Time: 09:00 - 17:00 GMT

Format: Online, but we can help organise regional clusters for those who 
wish to take part communally and offline

Submission Deadline: November 26th

Contact: (carwyn.morris /at/ manchester.ac.uk)

Submission:https://forms.gle/Ukq7kSZWEPYbUMsL7 
<https://forms.gle/Ukq7kSZWEPYbUMsL7>


About:zines, often forms of do-it-yourself self-published booklets, were 
thought by many to be a potential casualty of the digital age. Rather 
than losing their relevance, zines have re-emerged as a profound, 
powerful, and intimate form of story-telling, information sharing and 
artistic practice. Furthermore, the rise in digital media may have 
helped zine scenes grow, with digital formats circulating online, 
printing services easier to access, greater knowledge about zines, and 
the ability to edit zines digitally.


Yet, while zines are increasingly popular, published research on zines 
in Chinese cultures is still limited. This is surprising, as zines in 
Chinese cultures have been used to tell many academically relevant 
stories, including stories of protest, migrant lives, diasporic thought, 
racism, food cultures, gender inequality and LGBTQI+ struggles. 
Additionally, zines as self-published media circulate transnationally 
while enabling transnational conversations and solidarity. Zines do all 
of this while also being a form of self-publishing that can circumvent 
multiple modes of censorship.


Furthermore, zines are one form of self-publishing but zines do not 
exist in a bubble. While this conference is centred on zines, the 
conference is open to discussing other forms of self-publishing 
alongside conversations on zines. This includes self-published writing, 
video and audio, including self-published music and podcasts.


The conference will also host two onlinezine making workshops. One zine 
making workshop will be hosted by Hong Kong’s Zine Coop and another by 
the Shenzhen/NYC based Little Mountain Press. We also hope to compile 
and circulate a conference zine catalogue, where zine makers can share 
their zines to conference participants. Through these activities we hope 
to reflect on the practice and content of zines in Chinese cultures and 
to inspire participants to make their own zines. We hope to have you on 
board too!


As an emerging area of research, this conference isnot limitedto ‘zine 
experts’ (or any other ‘experts’) but seeks to bring interested parties 
together toimagine new possibilities. This may include, but is not 
limited to, (i) those researching zines related to Chinese cultures, 
(ii) scholars of zines more broadly, (iii) scholars of self-published 
and feminist media related to Chinese cultures and (iv) zine makers. To 
help discuss these issues we have several academic and non-academic 
experts already confirmed as taking part in the conference, 
includingLittle Mountain Press 
<https://www.littlemountainpress.com/>,Zine Coop 
<https://zinecoop.org/en>,Krish Raghav 
<https://twitter.com/krishraghav>,Rosemary Clark-Parsons 
<https://www.sp2.upenn.edu/people/view/rosemary-clark-parsons/>,Hongwei 
Bao <https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/people/hongwei.bao>,Dian Dian 
<https://emory.academia.edu/DianDian>,Kirsty Fife 
<https://www.mmu.ac.uk/infocomms/staff/profile/index.php?id=5329>,Denise 
Kwan <https://www.objectstories.co.uk/>,Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 
<https://www.ucl.ac.uk/information-studies/melanie-ramdarshan-bold> andKin 
Long Tong 
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344709339_DIY_Print_Activism_in_Digital_Age_Zines_in_Hong_Kong's_Social_Movements>. 



Submission:We encourage submission of individual papers and full 
sessions, including experimental formats, onany topic related to zines 
and self-publishing in Chinese cultures. Topics could include, but 
aredefinitely not limited to:


- Zines as mediums of resistance

- Your experience as a zine creator

- Zines as artistic practice

- Zines as forms of feminist practice and world making

- Zine scenes and zine fairs as sites of sociality and world making

- Why have zines emerged as a popular medium for China and the Chinese 
diaspora?

- The relationship between self-publishing and censorship

- The relationship between zines and historic publishing cultures

- The role of zines in academic output

- What we learn from making zines

- What should a research agenda on zines and self-publishing in Chinese 
cultures include?


If you are interested in participating, presenting, sharing your zine or 
engaging in other forms of discussion, please fill in this 
form:https://forms.gle/Ukq7kSZWEPYbUMsL7 
<https://forms.gle/Ukq7kSZWEPYbUMsL7>


Submissiondeadline for abstracts and sessionsis November 26th, but we 
encourage you to submit earlier if possible.


A small number ofbursariesmay be available to help those who would be 
unable to attend otherwise, for instance, due to a loss of wages or 
child care costs.


Outputs:The conference will release a special issue in theBritish 
Journal of Chinese Studies <https://bjocs.site/index.php/bjocs>. This 
Open Access journal shares ourpublishing philosophy 
<https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/scholcom/159/> and editors said they are 
willing to publish outputs, including textual and visual output, that 
other journals may not publish, such as this recent piece ondigital art 
<https://bjocs.site/index.php/bjocs/article/view/72>. We may also 
contribute a co-authored piece to theMade in China 
<https://madeinchinajournal.com/> journal.


In the spirit of the conference, the conference organisers have created 
their own zine, a reflection on 1930s women’s issues, as understood 
through the letters section to 1930s Chinese women’s magazine,Linglong 
<https://kjc-sv034.kjc.uni-heidelberg.de/frauenzeitschriften/public/magazine/issue.php?magazin_id=3>. 
The zine creation team is multidisciplinary, including postdoc Carwyn 
Morris, photographerLiz Hingley <https://www.lizhingley.com/>, fashion 
designerJingyi Ye <https://seventy-five.co.uk/> and PhD student Bonnie 
Wang. We look forward to discussing this zine and many other zines at 
the conference.


Finally, we hope to put together a zine conference catalogue to be 
shared internally at the conference, but potentially externally as well. 
We’d love to include your zines and your ideas in this zine catalogue, 
and to think about the best way of sharing these ideas.


This event is supported by the University of Manchester hosted 
Hallsworth Conference Fund.


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