An Attempt Is Made: Publishing a Zine Through Scholarly Channels | Outside the Lines

by Zoe Wake Hyde

As far as I’m concerned, pretty much anything can be considered scholarship. I like books, journals are fine, but if someone wants to use a podcast or a zine or a meme to communicate about their area of expertise, that should count for just as much. Yes, yes, peer review, but let’s not pretend that’s some perfect arbiter of worth. Besides, you can peer review anything if you put your mind to it (shout out to Hannah McGregor and Wilfrid Laurier University Press for their excellent scholarly podcasting open peer review work).

The thing is, when you’re publishing scholarship, it generally gets sent through all these pipes and tubes to come out into places where people can find it, and it gets mashed into shape in the process. It’s like a kids game where you’re supposed to put the square block into the square hole, the circle in the circle and so on. If you have a journal article and a journal article shaped tube, you’re set. But what if all the tubes are book and journal shaped and your block is a zine? What are your options?

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