Zine Micro-Credential 2026-27
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Monday, December 7, 2026 (notification by 12/14)
Zines: A Critical Craft for the Public Humanities
Course Description
The Public Humanities Practicum invites graduate students, faculty, and staff in any humanities field to apply for a micro-credential course in Zine-Making for the Public Humanities to take place over 6 weekly sessions between Tuesday, January 12 and Tuesday, February 16, 2027. Taught by Northwestern English department’s Visiting Assistant Professor S. Yarberry and Kaplan’s Public Humanities Graduate Assistant sarah nisenson, this course invites students to engage with zines as literary, communal, and artistic tools for information dissemination for public humanities projects. Participants will learn how to create, fold, and bind zines using techniques such as collage and linocut and software such as InDesign. Students will also contextualize their projects within the radical historical legacies of zines and learn about their circulation throughout communities in capitalist and barter economies. Participants will leave the course with a fully realized zine, along with an understanding of how to execute a zine from conception to distribution, and methods and resources for continuing to create and distribute zines. This micro-credential is limited to 17 participants. Graduate students, faculty, and staff are invited to apply (preference is given to Public Humanities Practicum students). Only those who can attend all the workshops should apply.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain what kind of information zines are best positioned to disperse, what communities these documents circulate through, and the radical historical legacies of these objects.
- Be able to identify the stylistic choices of a particular zine and the impact of those decisions on the zine’s content, distribution, and messaging.
- Create a zine from the beginning conception of an idea through the final resulting object using tools such as InDesign, collage, sewing, folding, printing, collage, and linocut.
- Develop an understanding of how zines function in communities, including the zine-specific barter economy, and how zine economies interface with capitalist ones.
Sessions
All sessions take place from 10:30am to 12:30pm
Tuesday, January 12, 2027—Session 1: Introduction to Zines
After spending some time getting to know one another, we will then shift to a discussion of zines as cultural, literary, and physical objects. We will examine the historical contexts in which zines were produced, the cultural spaces in which zines circulate, and the communities that produce zines. Through a selection of historic and contemporary zines, we will interrogate what kinds of ideas and themes are typically represented through this medium. These examples of zines will serve as touchstones for our discussion about zines’ varied formats, subject matter, and audiences and will serve as inspiration for the zine-making sessions to follow.
Tuesday, January 19, 2027—Session 2: From Idea to Page
This lesson will initiate the zine-making process that will continue for the rest of the micro-credential. Building upon the previous session’s exploration of the expansive possibilities zines offer, this session will focus on the material, thematic, and aesthetic considerations that arise as students organize their zines, specifically considering how to distribute and design information on each page. Students will create three distinct versions of the first page of their zine using varied techniques and discuss the effects of each on their zine’s messaging.
Tuesday, January 26, 2027—Session 3: Page Layout and Design Day; split session
This lesson will introduce students to both technological and mechanical techniques to design each page of their zines. The session will offer students one of two options to pursue: students may either work with a specialist from our library who will provide an introduction to InDesign before allowing students to experiment with this software themselves. Alternatively, students may experiment with DIY techniques for their designs that include collage and linocut, among other techniques.
Tuesday, February 2, 2027—Session 4: Bindings, Folds, and Printing
From hand-sewn bindings to stapled ones and single-page folds to multi-page formats, the zine object can take many forms. We’ll learn and experiment with a variety of different techniques to find the right shape for your project. Additionally, we’ll discuss printing options both on and off campus, ranging from risograph and screenprinting to printers available in our very own library.
Tuesday, February 9, 2027—Session 5: Barter Economy, Circulation, and Distribution
Field trip to Quimby’s Bookstore: our group will head to Quimby’s Bookstore — a Chicagoland bookstore specializing in zines and other print ephemera — to learn about how zines are circulated and distributed using alternative economic models, such as bartering, trading, pay-what-you-can, non-monetary, and more.
Tuesday, February 16, 2027—Session 6: Zine Share
To end the micro-credential, everyone will participate in a zine share, which we will discuss in-depth prior to the end of the course. You’ll each be expected to bring a handful of your printed zines for folks to either peruse or take with them. We’ve teamed up with a few other organizations that make and distribute zines around campus to collaborate with us.
Eligibility
Graduate students, faculty, and staff in any humanities or humanistic social sciences discipline. Preference is given to students in the Public Humanities Practicum but extra seats are held for those not in the practicum.
Application deadline
December 7, 2026
Application instructions
Apply via this Microsoft Forms link:
Microsoft form contents:
- Contact, affiliation info (program, faculty/student/staff, etc.)
- Are you able to attend all the workshop meetings?
- Why do you want to take this micro-credential? How will it support your work?
- The micro-credential will guide you through the process of a public humanities zine project; even if you are still ascertaining the shape of your project, please describe as much as you can about the zine project you’d like to delve into