Dr. Spencer D. C. Keralis and Professor Zach Frazier, editors
Call for Proposals
We invite proposals for Academizines, a special issue of Unbound: A Journal of Digital Scholarship. Zines have evolved as a form of scholarly communication that reaches wider publics than traditional academic publishing, and allows for a greater degree of creativity and innovation than conventional forms (Vong, 2016; Weida, 2020). Zines are featured in the special collections of research libraries including Barnard, the University of Minnesota, NYU, Duke, Texas A&M, Harvard, and many others, illustrating their value as cultural artifacts and works of creative and literary art (Darms, 2013; Joseph and Sawyer, 2024), and provide accessible forms of scholarly publishing, community-building, and resource-sharing among our personal and research communities (Etengoff, 2015; Ingram, 2024; Thomas, 2018). This special issue invites contributors from across the disciplines to share their research and creative scholarship in zine form. We welcome contributions in the language, vernacular, and forms used by the scholars and communities the zines serve, and encourage international perspectives, particularly from the global South and other regions not well represented in US-based scholarly journals and archives.
PDFs or physical copies of completed zines may be submitted with the 250-word abstract. We’re interested in collaborating with contributors on how to best present their work online, but we encourage printable PDFs to help readers print and share your work.
Physical copies of zines will be placed, at the creators’ discretion, in the LaBudde Special Collections and Archives Zine Collection at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. We encourage contributors to place their zines in other zine libraries as well.
As a community, contributors will have the opportunity to celebrate the launch of the issue and their contributions in a Virtual Zine Con hosted by the UMKC ZineLab in January of 2026.
Submit your 250-word Abstract
Key Dates & Deadlines
CFP Opens: August 1, 2025
Deadline for Abstracts: September 15, 2025
Acceptance notifications: September 30, 2025
Deadline for Completed Accepted Zines: November 15, 2025
Issue Launches: January 15, 2026
Academizines Virtual Zine Con Issue Virtual Launch Party: January 31, 2026
Some Possible Formats:
- Saddle-stitch (staple or sewn) half-letter booklets
- One-sheet folded zines
- Accordion books
- Cartonera
- Digital zines, explainer decks, and other alternative zine forms
Some Possible Topics
We welcome zines representing scholarship in any discipline, and we’re particularly enthusiastic about:
- Accessibility in/for zines
- Cartonera as scholarly communication
- Design Justice and zines
- Integrated computing and zines – Raspberry Pi, Arduinos, minimal computing, haptics
- Perzines as narrative writing
- Queer(ing) and Trans(ing) zines
- Zine libraries and archives
- Zines against AI and accelerationism
- Zines and/as book history
- Zines and/as comics studies
- Zines and/as critical making
- Zines and/as data visualization
- Zines and/as digital humanities
- Zines and/as media archaeology
- Zines and/as public humanities
- Zines and/as social justice activism
- Zines for public health and wellness
- Zines in and for your discipline
- Zine research in zine form
About the Editors
Dr. Spencer Keralis is a scholar of the past, present, and future of the book. Their work in book and media history has appeared in Book History, American Periodicals, and hyperrhiz: new media cultures. They are the co-editor with Cait Coker (Illinois) of the essay collection DH+BH: Digital Humanities and Book History (IOPN, 2025). Dr. Keralis currently serves as Head of Digital Scholarship Services and Co-Director of the Center for Digital and Public Humanities at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Zach Frazier is a graphic designer, educator, and small-press publisher. Zach is the founder of Astringent Press, a low-to-no-cost, small-volume publisher that seeks to produce physical and digital texts from visual/textual narratives belonging to historically minoritized and underserved communities. Zach’s work is featured in book shops and galleries across the U.S. Along with these roles, Zach also serves as Assistant Professor of Graphic Design in UMKC’s Department of Media, Art and Design.
The editors are the co-founders of ZineLab, an interdisciplinary book arts lab in UMKC Libraries’ Digital Collaboration Studio.
Bibliography
Darms, Lisa. 2013. The Riot GRRRL Collection. Feminist Press.
Etengoff, Chana. 2015. “Teaching Note: Using Zines to Teach about Gender Minority Experiences and Mixed-Methods Research.” Feminist Teacher: A Journal of the Practices, Theories, and Scholarship of Feminist Teaching 25 (2–3): 211–18. doi:10.5406/femteacher.25.2-3.0211.
Ingram, Noël. 2024. “Using Zines to Teach Literary Analysis in a Post ChatGPT World.” Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 13 (3): 53–64.
Joseph, Branden W. and Drew Sawyer. 2024. Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines. Phaidon.
Thomas, Susan. 2018. “Zines for Teaching: A Survey of Pedagogy and Implications for Academic Librarians.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 18 (4): 737–58. doi:10.1353/pla.2018.0043.
Vong, Silvia. 2016. “Reporting or Reconstructing? The Zine as a Medium for Reflecting on Research Experiences.” Communications in Information Literacy 10 (1): 62–80.Weida, Courtney Lee. 2020. “Zine Objects and Orientations in/as Arts Research: Documenting Art Teacher Practices and Identities through Zine Creation, Collection, and Criticism.” Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education 61 (3): 267–81. doi:10.1080/00393541.2020.1779570.
Publishing in the Archives Profession 