Thread by @zinelib

This week in #CUNYGCarcenc "The Lesbian Norman Rockwell": Alison Bechdel and Queer Grassroots Networks by @magdor (hi!). She queers her research methods partially by "centering archives as part of the analytical frame." 💜💜💜

read.dukeupress.edu/american-liter…

.@magdor's work relies on materials not held in capital A archives, but instead "queer-adjacent and queer grassroots archives." I was showing WGSS seniors ArchiveGrid yesterday, and guess which institutions, holdings, and therefore histories are off the grid for many researchers?

That's also a theory behind @zinecat btw. We want to build a repository for information on zine holdings from all types of libraries and archives.

Wild that Bechdel self-syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For, turning down the Universal Press Syndicate (UPS)--which distributes comics like Doonesbury--in 1993. I'm trying to imagine an alternate universe with DTWOF in USA Today.

Bechdel considers DTWOF an archive/herself an archivist, "chronicling her generation through the details of lesbians' daily lives" in the comic strip. (@magdor quoting Heather Stephenson)
What do y'all think, are comics and the likes archives? Are perzine authors self-archivists?

My personal zine is called Before I Forget--kind of archivy! It is a selective chronicle of my life, where I describe and preserve what happened and what I read. But does it contain/produce context, which one of the most central concerns of archivists and archives?

I am *all in* for @magdor's visual reading of Bechdel's intro to The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For as a trip through her archival materials, held at @archivalagents, the @umnlib #TretterCollection (hi @captain_maybe), and @Cornell_Library.

Do I detect a tiny bit of shade thrown Derrida's way in favor of Ann Cvetkovich? #ArchivesForBeginners

Letter-Writing Lesbians panel, courtesy of the #LesbianHerstoryArchives via @magdor's article on @AlisonBechdel.