Historically Significant

Chideya, Farai and Melissa Rossi. "Revolution, Girl Style." Newsweek. 23 November 1992: 84-87.

Davis Library AP2.N6772 or Undergraduate Library  ♥  Perkins/Bostock Library Periodicals N559W or Lilly Library Periodicals  ♥  Also available through both libraries via the electronic journals holdings.

Gross, David M. "Zine But Not Heard." Time. 5 September 1994: 68-69.

Davis Library AP2.T37 or Undergraduate Library  ♥  Perkins/Bostock Library Periodicals T583A or Lilly Library Periodicals  ♥  Also available through both libraries via the electronic journals holdings.

These articles are "the shots heard 'round the world" for the riot grrrl movement and the zine community, respectively.

The Newsweek article, which portrayed riot grrrl as just another cute teen fad, brought the proudly underground movement to the forefront of national media attention. Anger over the commercialization of riot grrrl and the dilution of its message by the popular press hastened the decline of the movement. The article mentions riot grrrl zines in passing, which prompted a new wave of zine writing among young feminists.

Although local zine communities had been the subject of reports in large newspapers like the New York Times up to a year before Gross's article was published, it marked the first time a major national publication had taken serious notice of the zine phenomenon. Reviled by zinsters for its gross generalizations and inaccuracies, it is nonetheless a defining moment in zine history.

Scholarly Articles

The scholarly articles cited below certainly do not comprise an exhaustive bibliography of the research that has been conducted upon women's and grrrls' zine culture, but are merely a sampling of both scholarly trends and work by leading zine scholars. Zines have been used successfully as primary documents across a vast and multidisciplinary body of work, from gender and sexuality studies to psychology, history, and sociology, and the researcher is encouraged to pursue each of these strains of thought beyond what is presented here.

Richardson, Angela. "Come On, Join the Conversation!: Zines as a Medium for Feminist Dialogue and Community Building." Feminist Collections. 17.3-4 (Spring-Summer 1996): 10-13.

This oft-cited article is Feminist Collection's first piece to cover the feminist zine community. Although a fairly standard introduction to zine history and culture, the researcher is likely to encounter it several times in the course of her or his reading. This article, technically a review of several zines (including Bust and Hip Mama), is exemplary of the zine coverage one will frequently find in this journal.

Available through the UNC and Duke Libraries via the electronic journals holdings.

Rosenberg, Jessica and Gitana Garofalo. "Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from Within." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 23.3 (Spring 1998): 809-841.

Published in one of the foremost women's studies journals, this apparently lengthy article is a pleasant surprise. After a brief but excellent introduction to the history of the riot grrrl movement, the remainder of the article is given over to the transcript of interviews with riot grrrls, who discuss all aspects of the movement—including a substantial conversation on zines—in a tone that is both intelligent and exuberant. Highlighting a weakness in women's zine scholarship, and in the zine and riot grrrl communities in general, the interviewees represent a diverse spectrum of backgrounds, races, and ethnicities.

Davis Library HQ1101.S5  ♥  Perkins/Bostock Library Periodicals S578CU  ♥  Also available from both libraries via the electronic journals holdings.

Schlit, Kristen. "'I'll Resist with Every Inch and Breath': Girls and Zine Making as a Form of Resistance." Youth and Society. 35.1 (September 2003): 71-97.

Schlit is a sociologist who uses zines, here and in several other related studies, as demonstrations of the abilities of young girls to create their own powerful identities and communities during the supposedly spirit-crushing period of adolescence. Using a sample of zines from her own collection (she used to be a zinester herself), Schlit traces the ways in which personal confessions recorded in zines enable young girls to exercise their own voice in a safe space free from adult censure and allows them to build a supportive community (a basis for future political action?) around core adolescent experiences (menarche, first sexual activity) that girls previously suffered through in isolation. A fine example of the multidisciplinary uses of zines as primary source documents.

Davis Library HQ793.Y6  ♥  Also available through the UNC and Duke Libraries via the electronic journals holdings.

Zobl, Elke. "Persephone Is Pissed!: Grrrl Zine Reading, Making, and Distributing Across the Globe." Hecate. 30.2 (2004): 156-176.

Zobl (creator of the Grrrl Zine Network) has written several articles and research papers on women's zines. This article particularly merits attention from zine researchers for two reasons. First, it contains a succinct explanation of what happened to the riot grrrls once they'd "grown up" (they became "ladies" and began the Ladyfest series of gatherings). Second, it places American women's zines in the wider context of the global zine writing phenomenon and encourages further research into the political and feminist potential of an international zine community.

Perkins/Bostock Library Periodicals H447 E528  ♥  Also available through the UNC and Duke Libraries via the electronic journals holdings.