Performs a rhetorical analysis of several zines that deal with gender and sexual identity and outlines some shared aesthetics and ethos of zines and zinesters, then connects the rhetorical and stylistic choices of zinesters to their searches for political and personal identity.

Seamfulness is a narrative-based and arts-informed inquiry into young women's "depression" as pedagogy. Unfolding in rural Nova Scotia, this research is rooted in my experience of depression as the most transformative event in my life story. While memoirists tell me I am not alone, there is currently a lack of research on personal understandings of depression, particularly for young adult women. Through storytelling sessions and self-publishing workshops, I explored four young Nova Scotian women's depression as a productive site for growth. Participants include four young women, including myself, who experienced depression in their early 20s, and have not had a major depressive episode for at least three years. Aged 29 to 40, we claim Métis, Scottish, Acadian, and British ancestries, and were raised and lived in rural Nova Scotian communities during this time. At the seams of adult education, disability studies, and art, I ask: How do young women narrate experiences of "depression" as education? How do handmade, self-published booklets (or “zines”) allow for exploring this topic as embodied, emotional and critical transformative learning? To address these questions, I employ arts-informed strategies and feminist, adult education, mental health, and disability studies literatures to investigate the critical and transformative learning accomplished by young women who experience depression. Through a feminist poststructuralist lens and using qualitative and arts-informed methods, I situate depression as valuable learning, labour, and gift on behalf of the societies and communities in which women live. I argue that just as zines are powerful forms for third space pedagogy, depression itself is a third space subjectivity that gives rise to the "disorienting dilemma" at the heart of transformative learning. I close with "Loose Ends," an exploration of depression as an unanswered question. This thesis engages visual and verbal strategies to disrupt epistemic and aesethetic conventions for academic texts. By foregrounding participant zines and stories, I privilege participant voices as the basis for framing their experience, rather than as material to reinforce or contest academic theories.

Seamfulness is a narrative-based and arts-informed inquiry into young women's "depression" as pedagogy. Unfolding in rural Nova Scotia, this research is rooted in my experience of depression as the most transformative event in my life story. While memoirists tell me I am not alone, there is currently a lack of research on personal understandings of depression, particularly for young adult women. Through storytelling sessions and self-publishing workshops, I explored four young Nova Scotian women's depression as a productive site for growth. Participants include four young women, including myself, who experienced depression in their early 20s, and have not had a major depressive episode for at least three years. Aged 29 to 40, we claim Métis, Scottish, Acadian, and British ancestries, and were raised and lived in rural Nova Scotian communities during this time. At the seams of adult education, disability studies, and art, I ask: How do young women narrate experiences of "depression" as education? How do handmade, self-published booklets (or “zines”) allow for exploring this topic as embodied, emotional and critical transformative learning? To address these questions, I employ arts-informed strategies and feminist, adult education, mental health, and disability studies literatures to investigate the critical and transformative learning accomplished by young women who experience depression. Through a feminist poststructuralist lens and using qualitative and arts-informed methods, I situate depression as valuable learning, labour, and gift on behalf of the societies and communities in which women live. I argue that just as zines are powerful forms for third space pedagogy, depression itself is a third space subjectivity that gives rise to the "disorienting dilemma" at the heart of transformative learning. I close with "Loose Ends," an exploration of depression as an unanswered question. This thesis engages visual and verbal strategies to disrupt epistemic and aesethetic conventions for academic texts. By foregrounding participant zines and stories, I privilege participant voices as the basis for framing their experience, rather than as material to reinforce or contest academic theories.

Based on two university libraries which represents the academic disciplines humanities and applied arts and design, this bachelor thesis examines how their respective collections of zines are handled in terms of preservation and availability. Furthermore, this bachelor thesis emphasises – by the help of Derrida’s and Cvetkovich’s theories of the archive, Bryant’s ontological realism, Frow’s literary frame and Plate’s new material turn – the need to broaden the view of zines as a physical artefact, and the meaning-bearing properties objects can have in and of itself. By the means of semi-structured interviews with librarians, complete with observations of the collections, this bachelor thesis also examines how different views and definitions of zines can have a substantial influence of how they are handled. This bachelor thesis also suggests that libraries need to take the inherent properties of zines – such as their socialfunctions – into consideration when planning on how to treat their collections.

Yes / Alternative forms of information dissemination have always been a crucial part of many radical forms of activism and organization. Arguably the most famous is the ‘zine - popularized in the punk/anarchist subculture of the 1980’s and 90’s, ‘zines were the antithesis of mainstream magazines, journals, and periodicals. They were an extension of the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) attitude that flourished within the subculture, reflecting a more informal and individualistic approach to the dissemination of information and ideas without the rigid formalities of mainstream literature. With the emergence of a new countercultural led by millennials, ‘zines have once again found popularity, taking advantage of the Internet to spread information even further than before through digital means. Although all ‘zines are different due to the individualistic and free nature of the format, most are often educational texts that also incorporate other forms of writing and media to help engage its audience with its content in a more exciting and entertaining way. Unfortunately, it appears that ‘zines have yet to find a foothold in academia as they have in social justice and activist groups – this is a shame, as there is a wealth of possibilities for the application of a ‘zine format for the dissemination of information to non-specialist audiences. This paper explores the idea of utilizing ‘zines as an alternative approach to public outreach in archaeology. This will include documenting and reflecting on the current progress of a ‘zine being developed by myself and other archaeologists about anarchist approaches to archaeological theory and practice. I will examine how practical it is to adopt this method for outreach, compare it to the more "traditional" methods of dissemination (journals, conferences, etc.), and reflect on my personal experiences with creating an archaeological 'zine of my own.

This thesis describes and analyses the politics of the Australian DIY anarcha-punk scene and the ethos of the culture's participants. Eschewing the orthodox sub-cultural approach which situates 'punk' within a structuralist hegemony / resistance paradigm, the thesis uses participant observation and textual analysis techniques to understand the role played by zines (hand made publications) in fostering the intellectual and ethical capacities needed to participate in the Australian DIY anarcha-punk scene. The zines, in their deviation from classical anarchism, often invoke concepts of power and 'the political' analogous with those of poststructuralist theory, yet DIY anarchist politics also diverge from poststructuralism. I therefore address DIY anarchist politics by questioning the significance of these inconsistencies with Theory. In doing so I am led to suggest that the zines may be more usefully approached as elements in the ethico-political practice of DIY anarchism, which nonetheless draws on the 'conceptual vocabulary' of much poststructuralism, as well as other theoretical approaches. Thus I re-describe DIY anarchism as an ethos which seeks to argue for its agendas and values on non-foundational terms. Further, I demonstrate that by pursuing an ethos of 'autonomy', the culture's participants seek to develop their intellectual and ethical capacities through a self-consciously 'developmental' engagement of power relationships, in the form of DIY 'prefiguration' or exemplification. Following the preoccupation with gender politics in the zines and the wider scenes, I describe the approach to gender politics in similarly ethico-political terms, drawing likewise on various elements of poststructuralist and other theories. I show this feminist ethical practice to be based on assumptions about gender which embody a certain poststructuralist approach to 'gender', one that is predicated on the material effects of a discursively congealed gender structure, but forms part of an ethos aiming to deconstruct this structure. By re-describing the political approaches of these zines in reference to various theoretical perspectives and ethico-political practices, I am able to offer perspectives to the culture in question, as well as to the interdisciplinary academic context within which I am writing.

Existence Stories is an interactive activist art project that gathers personal narratives from people about the ways in which their lives have been impacted by the current political climate in the United States, particularly surrounding the 2016 Presidential election and its aftermath. The project harnesses first-person narrative and audience participation as tools for humanizing the “Other” and building connections between people through the act of sharing stories. As the project has progressed over time, it has evolved in multiple directions and come to incorporate a variety of media, primarily comics, animation, printmaking, and zines. The roles that reproduction, distribution, and communication play in all of these media are also explored within this body of work.

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The goal of this research is to examine how zines--self-published alternative magazines that are part of Do It Yourself (DIY) independent media scenes-- are used to assert subjectivities. This research examines the entire bodies of work of five zinesters. It situates the work in New Literacy Studies, narrative research, and other zine scholarship. By exploring zinesters' works as they use it to perform literacy over time, this research redefines zines. It moves zines away from being seen as simply a way for young women to be active cultural producers and situates zines in autobiographical writing where life narratives are created and recreated as zinesters perform differing subjectivities over time. Through narrative analysis, this research looks at the following five zinesters and the subjectivities they perform at different stages in their zine career. Cindy Crabb creates a confessional space within her zines to tell secrets and stories around her body: specifically survivor narratives. Alex Wrekk positions herself as part of the punk scene and transforms her personal identity as she participates in the zine and punk scenes. Kelly Shortandqueer asserts transgender subject positions throughout his zines and the writing of his transnarrative. Lauren Martin creates autographic zines through her artist subjectivity. Davida Breier shares small stories throughout her zines, as is exemplified in her Intros. The results of this work allows for exploration into zines as a cultural literacy practice. More importantly, it examines and defines zines as life-long literacies--those literacy sites that people choose to participate within during varying times of their lives and not only during specific situational occurrences such as school or work--and zine creators as permanent writers. Zines allow a better understanding of what it means to perform literacy work in meaningful ways which permit participants to examine and reexamine, define and redefine, and construct and reconstruct subjectivities as they move through time and various social, cultural, and personal scenes. / Urban Education