Between activism and academia: zine-making as a feminist response to COVID-19

This paper gives an account of a series of three Zoom zine-making workshops run between March and July 2020 that were themed the political, the personal and the practical. A micro-reading of the zines is offered as data that mirror the aims of the workshops, to queer time by slowing down and creating a pause. The process of zine-making as feminist praxis is examined, and the zines themselves are discussed as data that reflect specific moments in time during the early phases of the pandemic. By inviting everyday feminist academic workers, from PhD candidates to professors to participate in a collective act of zine-making, this paper argues that a type of feminist work exists between academia and activism that subverts institutional definitions of productivity, collaboration and output.