Zines!

Venus Envy by Patty Winter

Zines are non-commercial, small circulation “Do It Yourself” (DIY) magazines. They provide the public with a space for open discussion on issues of importance to our democracy. UCF students in Theory and Criticism in the Visual Arts and Aesthetics have engaged in making zines about a topic of interest to them. In doing so, they become zinsters, engaged in the act of developing and inexpensively distributing ideas and social critiques through images and text. These publications can be chaotic, disturbing, uncomfortable, sensual, complex, loud, and confrontational.

The Little Joker by Sara Sartor

Historians trace the origination of the word to the science fiction fanzines that arose in the 1930s, when the Science Correspondence Club founded an amateur publication in which people could publish stories and respond to science fiction. During the 1960s and 1970s the popular and mass culture orientation of zines merged with the political orientation of pamphlets. At that time zines were largely focused on social revolution and the Vietnam War. Due, in part, to the convenience and availability of quick copy technologies, zines are flourishing today, expanding in content to include feminist perspectives through the impetus of groups like the riot grrrls and cyberpunk. Besides being passed out in hard copies, zines are also distributed on the WWW and on CD-ROMs.

Art in the Age of AIDS by Jennifer Collier

Zines are written and illustrated through pastiche, parody, irony, and bricolage. Fragmentation and discontinuity are the norm. Narratives and authorship can be ambiguous, simultaneous, self-conscious, and/or anonymous. Reflecting the world we now live in, UCF zinsters have explored disjointed narrative, complicated ways of seeing the world, and issues of ownership. Making zines allows students to participate in contemporary debates while they clarify their own visions.


Kristin Congdon
Professor of Art and Philosophy

Censorship by Tiffany Beasi		Faces of Despair by Laura Guttridge

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Last Updated: 29-Nov-07

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