The ECU Zine Lab is a product of a Public Interest Technology-University Network grant. The grant is a collaboration with Missouri S&T, and each university will host two workshops in 2025.
The Zine Lab leverages zine-making as a public-interest technology to instill communication, collaboration, and content creation skills that advance gender justice and promote technological equity. Originating in diverse cultural movements, including sci-fi fandom, 1960s counterculture, and 1980s punk rock, zines remain an active and activist form of tactical feminist publishing practices that have expanded into digital formats (e-zines). The first season of the Zine Lab (2025) aims to empower community expression and advocacy directed at revealing and healing gender injustices manifested in and through technology. This innovative educational and community outreach project will produce four zines covering gender-affirming technologies, reproductive healthcare technologies, technologies affecting survivors of gender violence, and technologies affecting women and gender minorities on campus. Scholars, students, and community partners will collaboratively edit these zines, and zine-making workshops will promote community engagement and expression.
To support the Zine Lab and institutionalize the project, the grant team also will develop a zine-making course to integrate the project into the curriculum. The course will be a testing ground for developing a comprehensive toolkit for educators to integrate zine-making into their own use cases; the toolkit will include lesson plans, activities, and media resources. Funding will support the collaborative development of the Zine Lab by teams at Missouri University of Science and Technology (MUST) and East Carolina University (ECU). Eventually, we hope to expand this model to include more institutions, contributing to the field of public interest technology.