We really hope that this space becomes a forum that you as students take control of and make your own. As instructors we will of course monitor and take part in the blog, but its up to you to drive its content and make it something that is worth being part of. Use this as a space to engage with the material, share your thoughts on readings, post link to interesting and related articles, films, TV music or anything that you feels fits within the broad scope of our discussions.
As was mentioned in class on Tuesday, we will be collectively creating a zine for this semester's final project. We will of course cover all of this in class, but I thought it would be a useful first blog post to give a bit of a more concrete definition of zines.
A 'zine is most commonly defined as a "do-it-yourself" magazine that is non-commercially released and dedicated to a specific subject matter. It is basically a magazine, but made by people outside of mainstream publishing. Zines exist on nearly every subject, ranging from gardening to sports to science fiction to music. Collectively we will create the theme, cover, back cover and all of the zines content. This really will be a space to creatively explore the themes, issues and ideas that we will cover in class in a means that as students you can take control of.
Here is a great link that gives a great description of what a zine is and also dates their history as far back as the early "zines" produced by people like Martin Luther and Thomas Paine. http://zinewiki.com/Zine. If you have time, take a look at this zine directory. It will give you a good sense of just how popular and diverse zine publishing is. http://zinewiki.com/Zines_A-D
Below are a few images of zines to give you a sense of their style, construction and aesthetic. But remember, this project is yours, its up to us to decide how our zine will eventually look.
Also, here is a great site that gives some pretty detailed instructions on how to create your own zine. We will go over a lot of this process in class, but take some time and explore this link. Its a great resource. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Zine_Making.
We are really excited about the possibilities of this final project and can't wait to create something spectacular!
