Handmade zines were on full display at zine fest on Thursday, Nov. 20. Photo by Clara Paulson.
Students from five University of Tennessee at Chattanooga classes filled the UTC Library’s Roth Reading Room on a recent Thursday evening for a collaborative zine fest, an event showcasing projects from courses taught by UC Foundation Professor and Associate Department Head of English Sybil Baker, Assistant Professor of Sociology Natalie Blanton, Associate Professor of History Susan Eckelmann and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Emma McDonell.
UTC Studio Librarian Sarah Kantor, who helped each class build its project during the semester, said the Nov. 20 gathering marked the first time the groups had come together to share their work. More than 120 students participated in the event to show off zines “grounded in research, personal expression or both,” she said.
“As far as I’m aware, this is the first time that anyone has done this kind of event on campus,” Kantor said. “It’s such a unique opportunity for our students to share their creative work outside of the classroom.”
With Kantor able to teach zine construction in each class and provide materials through the Library Studio, they decided to link their assignments and plan a shared event.
A zine fest, Kantor explained, is a simple idea. Students make short, handmade mini-magazines—called zines—and then share them with anyone who wants to read, trade or ask questions. Zines are typically created in small batches, often by hand, and communicate ideas in a format that’s “informal, creative and easy to pick up.”
The materials are basic: folded paper, photocopies, glue sticks, tape, collage, handwriting, typewritten pages or any combination. The purpose is even simpler: communicate something clearly, creatively and directly to a real audience.
“Zines are independent mini magazines,” she said. “They are inherently sort of underground and countercultural because they are an opportunity for people whose views and voices aren’t represented in mainstream culture to express themselves.”
Kantor said zines have been part of her life for decades. Long before she even knew the term, she made one as a 7-year-old; after watching the movie “Newsies,” she decided to create her own newspaper.
Years later, by the time she entered the library profession, Kantor understood how naturally zines align with hands-on learning. She began integrating them into college instruction after seeing faculty experiment with creative assignments that didn’t rely on traditional papers. The value, she said, comes from how zines change the way students communicate ideas.
Kantor said zines shift the mindset from writing for an instructor to writing for people.
“They’re usually made in small runs,” she said. “Most students were making five to 20 copies—just enough to share or trade.”
The zine fest event showcased course projects from English, anthropology, history and sociology.
The more the idea circulated among faculty, the more it grew. Two sociology courses taught by Blanton used zines. An anthropology class followed. A history course built a zine assignment around 1960s civil rights history in Chattanooga. A creative writing fiction workshop adapted the format as the final stage of a semester-long short story project.
When the faculty realized they were all independently assigning zines, the collaboration came naturally.
For Baker’s “Creative Writing: Fiction” students, the format offered new ways to think about their work. She explained that they had already written, shared and revised drafts; now, they had to translate those stories into something physical.
“I think there’s something in the zeitgeist right now about zines,” Baker said. “They are making a comeback.”
Students in her class spent weeks revising their fiction, then worked through how to break the story into pages. Some hand-lettered titles or cut illustrations from magazines. Others were designed digitally before printing and hand-assembling.
All of them had to think about how to guide a reader through a story visually.
Senior Fenella O’Neal, a computer science major with a creative writing minor, said the process helped her see how other disciplines approached the format.
“We got to do a lot of lessons on both the history of zines and how to make them,” said O’Neal, a native of Franklin, Tennessee. “Everyone seems really passionate about it.”
Although she had previously visited the Chattanooga Public Library’s annual zine fest, O’Neal had never made one herself.
“It was a pretty cool experience,” she said, “and it’s been really interesting talking to people from different majors and seeing what their interpretation of this is.”
For sophomore Levi Adcock, an English: creative writing major from Chattanooga, the challenge wasn’t revising the story. It was figuring out how to bring it to life on paper.
“I really had to work around limitations,” Adcock said. “I did this just by cutting and pasting, using little scraps from clothing catalogs and stuff like that.”
He had initially planned to use Adobe software but decided to lean into a handmade approach. The result was something he said he wouldn’t have created if he’d stayed on the computer.
“I’m really happy with the result,” he said. “It made a new image for it.”
Senior creative writing major Elijah Nielsen said the event took the assignment beyond the classroom.
The Chattanooga native’s horror-inspired story looked very different from the surrealist, fantasy or sci-fi pieces created by classmates. Seeing anthropology and sociology projects added a completely different layer.
“Some of the anthropology and history projects really broke the mold,” Nielsen said. “One of them was a 3D model zine, which kind of redefined what a zine could even be.”
Integrated studies major Megan Fuqua said the assignment matched her interests in interior architecture and communication—even though it was her first zine.
“I really had so much fun making mine and reading everyone else’s,” said Fuqua, a senior from Hendersonville, Tennessee. “Everyone’s minds work different, so it’s interesting seeing how they apply it to their work.”
She said learning about the history of zines and the creativity behind them pulled her in.
“It was so interesting,” Fuqua said. “I got to know why they were made and how long ago they were made and all these things. I really enjoyed it.”
“We were just in awe,” said Dr. Natalie Blanton (left). “The students immediately started to intermingle. They’re really hungry for connection.”
In Blanton’s “Social Theory” and “Sociology of Sexuality” courses, the assignment had a different purpose. Students weren’t telling stories, she said; they were explaining concepts.
“I firmly believe that social theory and sociology are only as good as they can be communicated to people and the people that they’re about,” Blanton said.
The zine exercise forced students to consider what a beginner would need to know.
“True learning is being able to teach other people that idea,” she said.
History students approached their zines differently.
Eckelmann’s “The Sixties” course focused on Chattanooga’s civil rights history, and students drew from both digital and physical archives—including reading historical zines from the era to see how people communicated ideas outside mainstream newspapers.
“The task was really to see themselves as scavenger historians,” she said. “They had to put together a narrative in a creative way that also challenges time-worn narratives locally and nationally.
“The aesthetic component had to highlight what made that history unique.”
Eckelmann said watching the students engage with Chattanooga’s history and with one another reinforced her belief that unconventional assignments can strengthen learning.
“Seeing them getting invested and getting really intellectually curious about this history was exciting,” she said.
Blanton said the collaborative event exceeded her expectations. Students were talking across majors, trading zines and celebrating their work at the end of a long semester.
“We were just in awe,” she said. “The students immediately started to intermingle. They’re really hungry for connection.”
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Photo gallery by Clara Paulson
