[Air-L] Final CfP: Zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures [Online: Jan 14th and 21st]

[Carwyn Morris]

Zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures


Date: January 14th and 21st

Time: 09:00 - 17:00 GMT

Format: Online, but we can help organise regional clusters for those who wish to take part communally and offline

Submission Deadline: November 26th [Extended: December 3rd]

Contact: carwyn.morris at manchester.ac.uk

Submission: https://forms.gle/Ukq7kSZWEPYbUMsL7
Full CfP: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzuvx4PAhK15B0Z6wHlJ-_Roo91PaYjXm9CI_8SOVMc/edit?usp=sharing
Output: A special issue in the British Journal of Chinese Studies<https://bjocs.site/index.php/bjocs>

Theme: A two-day conference exploring zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures. The conference encourages submissions from any intellectual, academic or artistic perspective, and we further encourage contributions that explore zines and self-publishing related to feminist perspectives and LGBTQI+ themes. Zines, often forms of do-it-yourself self-published booklets, were thought by many to be a potential casualty of the digital age. Rather than losing their relevance, zines have re-emerged as a profound, powerful, and intimate form of story-telling, information sharing and artistic practice. Yet, while zines are increasingly popular, published research on zines in Chinese cultures is still limited. This is surprising, as zines in Chinese cultures have been used to tell many academically relevant stories, including stories of protest, migrant lives, diasporic thought, racism, food cultures, gender inequality and LGBTQI+ struggles. This conference seeks to stimulate conversations and research directions on zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures and to bring together academics and non-academics to encourage future collaboration.


As an emerging area of research, the conference is not limited to 'experts' in any field, we seek to bring interested parties together to imagine new possibilities. This may include, but is definitely not limited to, (i) those researching zines related to Chinese cultures, (ii) scholars of zines more broadly, (iii) scholars of self-published and/or feminist media related to Chinese cultures, (iv) those teaching about zines and self-published media and (v) those producing zines and self-published media. To help discuss these issues we have several academic and non-academics already confirmed as taking part in the conference, including Little Mountain Press<https://www.littlemountainpress.com/>, Zine Coop<https://zinecoop.org/en>, Krish Raghav<https://twitter.com/krishraghav>, Rosemary Clark-Parsons<https://www.sp2.upenn.edu/people/view/rosemary-clark-parsons/>, Melanie Ramdarshan Bold<https://www.ucl.ac.uk/information-studies/melanie-ramdarshan-bold>, Hongwei Bao<https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/people/hongwei.bao>, Dian Dian<https://emory.academia.edu/DianDian>, Kirsty Fife<https://www.mmu.ac.uk/infocomms/staff/profile/index.php?id=5329>, Denise Kwan<https://www.objectstories.co.uk/> and Kin Long Tong<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344709339_DIY_Print_Activism_in_Digital_Age_Zines_in_Hong_Kong's_Social_Movements>. We have a range of zine and self-published media producers from Chinese cultures around the world taking part. We will also be hosting two online zine making workshops from zine makers working in Chinese cultures to help further explore practices of zine making and self-publishing.

We encourage submissions of individual papers and full sessions, including experimental formats, on any topic related to zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures. Please use the Google Form above to submit an abstract or a session. You can read the full CfP and see the conference poster through the Google Doc linked above. If you would like more information, or wish to discuss a potential contribution, feel free to email me. I would appreciate if you could submit your rough/non-final abstract or session idea by December 3rd.

Best wishes,
Carwyn Morris (he/him)
Research Associate<https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/carwyn-morris(ee23928f-22c1-44e8-a2f8-f404c02ac434).html> at the Manchester China Institute, University of Manchester
My new article in Mobilities, Moving to keep still: Dynamic stillness in the physical and digital geographies of Beijing<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17450101.2021.1928539>
I am hosting a small conference on zines and self-publishing in Chinese cultures, CfP is here<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzuvx4PAhK15B0Z6wHlJ-_Roo91PaYjXm9CI_8SOVMc/edit?usp=sharing> and submissions here<https://forms.gle/aj7Z94nQDR5psy439>
Recently written on wanghong (internet celebrity) urbanism<https://chaoyang.substack.com/p/wanghong-urbanism>
Co-convenor of the China Reading Group, a regular discussion group on social scientific, humanities and non-academic artefacts about China, broadly defined. Send me an email to get involved
Tweeting @carwyn<https://twitter.com/carwyn>
<https://twitter.com/carwyn>
<https://twitter.com/carwyn>