Trauma, Healing, and the Move into Mass Culture
The first subproject examines feminist zines and self-published works since the late 1980s. It focuses on negotiations of women’s health and sexualized violence, particularly narratives of trauma and healing. Reading and writing are thereby often understood as interconnected elements of the healing process, as giving literary form to traumatic experiences can open up possibilities for action while also encouraging readers to write and engage in publishing themselves. The project traces how these forms of feminist expression change in the transition from analogue to digital self-publishing. In doing so, it highlights a fundamental ambivalence of DIY culture: what began as a countercultural practice of empowerment now also shapes popular and commercial forms of publishing.

The Witch: Knowledge, Persecution, and Empowerment
The second subproject turns to feminist zines in Latin America and their engagement with witch persecution. Here, too, women’s health and sexualized violence are central. The figure of the witch is transformed from an object of persecution into a positive figure of identification. It connects questions of reproductive self-determination with the appropriation of knowledge about one’s own body. Motifs such as herbal knowledge and rituals can become practices of self-care and self-defence within these zines. The project examines how these forms of self-representation challenge or negotiate colonial and postcolonial structures of law and power.

International Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer
MERCUR funding supports international archival research and brings together researchers from the University Alliance Ruhr and international experts. The collaboration will lead to an English-language publication and lay the groundwork for a joint follow-up project to be submitted to the German Research Foundation (DFG). Travelling zine libraries and an exhibition will also make the project’s research accessible to a wider public.