10.20.2012

Southeast Zine Fest TODAY!

I'm sorry to be so late in writing about this fantastic event!  I meant to post yesterday, but the day was quite full on campus, then I was hanging with Maybelle in the evening (the rocking chair broke--very sad time for her--she cried and cried), then Biffle made a delicious dinner and we talked and ate, and then I was too sleepy.

This is the kind of information that could be in a zine.

So, today is the Southeast Zine Fest, the first zine fest ever in Charleston (or in the entire state, and perhaps in the entire Southeast, as the title suggests).  It's at Redux, downtown. It starts at noon.  And I am speaking at 1:00!

There's the first slide in my Powerpoint.  I'll be talking about the predecessors to zines and about zines now and the kinds of things they address.  I worked for several hours on the talk yesterday--it's a version of a talk I've given before, but always before I've been asked to give academic talks.  This isn't necessarily an academic crowd, so I worked hard to change it.

Biffle suggested that I try to channel Margaret Pilarski and Susan Cohen, the two creators of this event, and speak the way they did at Pecha Kucha (to see that video, go to the Southeast Zine Fest link, above), but let's be clear here:  that's not my skill set.  They are awesome, and I simply don't speak that way. 

What is my skill set is teaching, so I decided to go with that mode for the Zine Fest talk.  Rest assured it will still be somewhat academic, because there's no way for me to escape that entirely, but what I decided to do is a lot of "Look at this zine (on the screen)!  What's it doing?  What do you see?"  So if you come to my presentation you'll learn about zines and feminism, and you'll get to participate in a conversation about--for instance--how the Riot Grrrl NYC zine made a woman's vulva look like an apple.  You know, stuff like that.

And one final plug:  here's a great interview with Margaret Pilarski, national editor at Skirt! magazine, member of the Women's and Gender Studies Community Advisory Board, and alum of the WGS Program at CofC.  And rest assured I use her for as much PR as I possibly can!  It's gratifying when you have such cool people as alums.

No comments: