What is a Zine?
A zine is “…a self-published, non-commercial print-work that is typically produced in small, limited batches…Zines can touch on a variety of topics from music and art, to politics, sexuality, humor and personal memoir. Their content may be written, drawn, printed, collaged, or any other form of combining words and imagery—a zine’s structure may be narrative, journalistic, comic-like, or completely abstract” (The Bindery 2020).
Follow these links to see awesome zine examples that spark creativity:
- “Compiled by Mimi Nguyen, Evolution of a Race Riot was two compilation zines and a third zine listing projects, zines, and resources for people of color who were/are involved in punk rock and punk culture. The Race Riot comps are crucial and critical documents for POC involved in the subcultural terrain of DIY publishing, music, art, and culture.”
- “This zine was created at a workshop Migrant Zine Collective hosted at the Central City Library Marketspace in association with New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW)…Following the NZFW theme of sustainability, contributors were invited to share their messages, thoughts and experiences about sustainability and caring for the environment by collaging, writing, or illustrating.”
- This zine was created by Milo Miller, a co-founder of QZAP, a digital archive preserving queer zines for “queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest [in]DIY publishing and underground queer communities”. Responding to a Times Magazine report on zines, they created a love letter on the ABC’s of the “Zine World” that shows the features and tenets of a zine that are “influential and enjoyable” to them as a zinestar.
- A Zine by Molly Young, Eloise Telford, and Michaela Emingeroua on zine-making as a practice of “cultural community development”, and the importance of zine-making as a form of community art.
Zine Philosophy
‘A Zine about “Students as Partners”‘ (ZSaP) is a participatory project that highlights the collaborative work of faculty and students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Zines serve as the ideal outlet to creatively showcase the numerous faculty-student and student-student partnerships already taking place on our campus, as well as to encourage new innovations in collaborative teaching and learning among faculty and students.
A faculty-student collaboration in and of itself, this zine embodies the principles of “students as partners.” It consists of “a re-positioning of the roles of students and staff in the learning endeavor, grounded in a values-based ethos…within or outside of curricula; between individuals, small groups, or large cohorts; in courses (also known as modules or units); [and] across entire programs of study” (Mercer-Mapstone et al. 2017). Lessons from the Scholarship Of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) community emphasize the many benefits of faculty-student partnerships in teaching and learning such as this one, including: enhancing student learning outcomes, increasing student motivation and leadership, and transforming faculty and students’ sense of self.
What We Publish
We publish a wide variety of content produced by faculty, staff, and students, prioritizing collaborations between them. This includes, but is not limited to: academic papers, comics, creative writing, essays, infographics, and op eds. Submissions should fit into at least one of four categories:
- Opinion (focused on current events on our campus, as well as in higher education more broadly)
- Research (focused on student-faculty research projects)
- Pedagogy (focused on any collaborative teaching/learning activities on campus)
- CreativeReflective (focused on personal experiences)
Although some of these categories have traditionally been written, even as commentary on the work, in an objective, logical, or persuasive tone, we aim to explore the opposite with the contributors and audience. The attitude expressed in each contribution can be humorous, serious, ironic, or whatever feels genuine as you recall your experiences working with your partner: even the small things with big affects matter here. Choose the words that best encapsulate the subjective part of your work. What moments in your experience caused a sense of closeness or distance while collaborating? What made you think of your work as a shared responsibility between partners and not as one-sided? Let your contribution be a sharing of your lived experience that challenges traditional notions of student, staff and faculty.
Submissions & Formatting
- All submissions should be made using this Google Form.
- All submissions undergo collective review by the Zine Editorial Board (Zboard), consisting of students and faculty members. Submissions may be accepted as is, or may undergo a transparent peer review process.
- Essays, op eds, and academic-style articles should conform to a style guide chosen by the contributor(s).
- We recommend that essays and op-eds fall between 250-2500 words, and that academic-style articles not exceed 3,500 words; however, we will consider contributions of any length.
- Artwork, cartoons, images, photographs, and all other visual contributions should be submitted as a PDF or JPEG.
- While we do not generally publish audio or video contributions, we will consider them.
- All published contributions are open-access and licensed under Creative Commons per contributor designation (choose your Creative Commons License here!). Authors maintain copyright of their original work. We ask that you please credit the original appearance in the zine if you republish elsewhere.
- Each submission form has two sections on naming a title: the first section will contain the required choice of your contribution’s title and the next section will be an optional choice of what you think would be a good title for the upcoming issue of the Zine. The latter question is for two reasons: to embrace the collaborative philosophy of the zine to ensure a shared sense of ownership in zine-making between the contributors and the zBoard as well as because of inspiration from American Horror Story’s title pattern!
