[Commlist] CFP Symposium on Zines

*Selfing and Shelving: Zines, Zine Media, and Zintivism*

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

May 3, 2024

Zines are extremely versatile and shapeshift across various historical 
and cultural contexts. The term covers a wide range of objects with 
different aesthetic and material qualities as well as contexts of 
production and reception: Zines accommodate the collective concerns of 
fans and activists (zintivism) and the personal voice of the diarist and 
letter writer. Since the rise of digital media, zines and their 
aesthetics have become portable: Digitised and digital zines exist 
alongside blogs, social media, podcasts, and substacks, which seem to 
exhibit zine-y tendencies, while digital infrastructures have changed 
the ways that print zines are produced, distributed, and archived.

At the same time, print media, including zines, have seen a revival and 
postdigital reinvention, not the least as a paper-based escape from 
screens. In this new constellation, we propose to revisit questions 
like: Where does the zine begin and end and how have its meanings 
changed for readers, collectors, and makers? How can contemporary 
developments of the zine (like the wave of quaranzines) change our 
understanding of its meaning, genealogy, and archive? And what, and 
where, are zines now?

This symposium suggests considering these questions through the lens of

  * /shelving/– the zine at home, on the shelves of libraries, archives,
    and collectors, its repurposing and disassembling, its neglect as
    ephemera as well as remediation through reprints and staging in
    exhibitions, coffee table books, etc.
  * and ‘/selfing/’ – the zine as a tool in making identities and
    ‘working on the self,’ as a ‘third space’ for new subjectivities, as
    ‘sticky’ with affects, as the glue of communal belonging
    (local/transnational), as resource for ‘subcultural capital’ and
    distinction, and as conduit for relationships and activism.

We especially welcome papers that propose theoretical approaches which 
attend to the materiality of zines and zine production and consider the 
printed zine as only one form of zine media. We are interested in new 
approaches to zines as well as in investigations of media and objects 
that borrow from, reference, mimic, disguise as, or are influenced by 
the zine – that are in some way zine-y and take the format, aesthetics, 
tone, and /or affect beyond paper.

Please send an abstract (ca. 300 words) + short bio to

(safazli /at/ uni-mainz.de) <mailto:(safazli /at/ uni-mainz.de)> and 
(milos.hroch /at/ fsv.cuni.cz) <mailto:(milos.hroch /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)>

*by December 31, 2023*

This symposium is designed as a friendly space for established and 
emerging scholars to share and discuss ideas. We also encourage 
practitioners to apply and are happy to accommodate non-academic formats 
of presentation.

Organisers

Sabina Fazli, Obama Institute, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

Miloš Hroch, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic


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