Zin/ography:


The final and most ambitious project of this class is called zin/ography. As its name suggests, zin/ography is a kind of writing (ography) that appropriates some of the techniques of zine writing to an academic writing project. You'll notice the slash (/) in zin/ography; the slash serves as a reminder that through our writing we are trying to challenge the stereotypes that hail us. This challenge, however, is more sophisticated than a simple rejection or condemnation of those stereotypes; instead, it signals a playful exploration and transformation of those stereotypes. Zin/ography involves a 5 step writing process that requires you to work with the techniques you learned and the material you generated in exercises 1-4.

Step 1: Write your fascinations. Stage the image-repertoire of your fandom.
Return to the journal you generated for exercise 2. Rethink your situation now that you've had most of the semester to reflect on your relationship to your favorite star and list the points of identification you have with that star. Working from this list, stage these points of identification by writing them up; be sure to show the points where you intersect with your star.

Step 2: Include discursive examples of your image-repertoire from the four domains of the pop cycle.
Return to the list you generated in step 1. For step 2 you should think about how these points of identification occur in various areas of your life. They will appear in different forms. For each item on your list, imagine how it exists in four areas of your life experience: your personal life (home/family), popular entertainment, school, and your major. Obviously, step 1 of this process has addressed the popular entertainment category, but are there other places in popular culture (besides your chosen star) where you identify in the same way; where you observe a similar stereotype hailing you? If so, include examples of these instances. Proceed by writing these kinds of instances up for the other 3 domains (home/family, school, and your major area of study); where in these domains of experience do you see your stereotypes at work?

Step 3: Write your fragments in various modes; use multiple genres to compose the text.
Return to the ideas you generated in steps 1 and 2. Experiment with mode, voice, and genre. Transform your fragments using various approaches. Try to avoid leaning too heavily on the traditional expository 'telling' mode of most academic essays -- instead, try slashing some fragments. That is, use this playful space to indirectly challenge the stereotypes that hail you. Play with several possibilities. Recall the lesson we learned about zine writing in exercise 4. Vary your fragments as zine writers vary theirs.

Readings:
excerpts from Raymond Queneau's Transformations
Jenkins' "'Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk': Slash and the Fan-Writing Community"
Constance Penley's "Brownian Motion: Women, Tactics, and Technology"

Screenings:
Todd Haines, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

Step 4: Foreground aesthetic logic; arrange the text according to a pattern.
At this point, you need to start thinking about the form your zin/ography will take. Proceed with a pattern in mind -- and then simply following the pattern. You might think about patterning your project in two ways: by screen and by link. That is, you want to consider both the aesthetics of the individual screen and that of the links between screens. Step 5, below, speaks directly to the issue of patterning you links, but for now you should think about the screens themselves. For our purposes, I might suggest that you consider the aesthetics of zines as a guide. You might appropriate their aesthetic form and use it to present the work you are now doing. Remember that your pattern must repeat and be recognizable -- so strive for simplicity rather than too much complexity. If your reader cannot recognize your pattern, then it's failing to do its job. Sticking with one pattern will allow you to foreground aesthetic logic.

Screenings:
Greenaway's H's
Farocki's Images of the World and Inscriptions of War

Step 5: Remotivate textual meaning through juxtaposition sequenced by the associational link. Ask yourself not so much what does it mean, but what does it mean in relation to something else? Focus on the meaning of the links between texts. For step 5 I'd like you to experiment with the many ways you might connect your fragments. How does combining your fragments in different ways make them mean differently? Think about this aspect of your work very carefully. Which of your fragments are more telling when grouped together? Link these fragments together in ways which highlight these connections. Extrapolating from On Dreams, use the four main operations of the dream work as your way of linking. How might these translate to a written project? Use Michael Jarrett's piece "A Jarrett in this Text" as a model.

Readings/Viewings:
Freud, On Dreams
Jarrett, "A Jarrett in this Text"
Waxweb

Screenings:
Berger's Ways of Seeing (part 1)