Feminist and queer zines have long been powerful cultural tools used in shaping social movements and preserving marginalized histories, and researchers are now examining how to safeguard their future. Zines are hand-made self-published booklets or magazines.
Dr. Barbara Dynda is a post-doctoral researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on feminist and queer grassroots culture, history and activism in the post-socialist era. She is currently a Visiting Scholar in Residence with the ReMedia Infrastructure for Research and Creation (ReMedia) at UBC Okanagan, where she will work with Drs. Emily Murphy and Maria Alexopoulos on research and creative initiatives. Murphy and Alexopoulos are faculty members in the Department of English and Cultural Studies.
ReMedia, led by Dr. Murphy, supports research that combines cultural memory, media, and embodied methods. ReMedia projects investigate a range of subjects, including comics, literature, performance, social media platforms, memes, modernist robots—and now zines.
Dynda’s role as the ReMedia Visiting Scholar in Residence will expand the multimedia cultural memory-focused research program of ReMedia to include expertise in European and Post- Soviet queer and feminist studies. This visit builds on a long-standing collaboration with Dynda and Alexopoulos through the Polish-German project Queer IT – Queer Theory in Transit, where they work together on archives in Germany and Poland.
During her visit to UBC Okanagan, Dynda will work on the digitization of a collection of zines from post-socialist Poland with International Student Undergraduate Research Award winner, Soha Aftab, a student in English and Cultural Studies. She will also collaborate with Drs. Murphy and Alexopoulos on a forthcoming edited volume on transnational feminist and queer archives, which will be considered for publication by Rutgers University Press.
Feminist and queer zines have significantly influenced feminist discourses, practices, and identities, and the rise of far-right governments has made ephemeral cultural heritage materials, including queer and feminist materials, vulnerable on a global scale, explains Dr. Dynda.
“The DIY, ephemeral production and circulation of zines plays a significant role in the dissemination of activist narratives, biographies, and ideas,” she adds.
They reinforce the spirit of community and solidarity among queer and feminist circles record and commemorate the herstories of women, and circulate in activist and creative communities far beyond the university.
“With this project, we are working to answer how scholars, memory workers, artists, and activists can work to build strategies for transnational solidarity in preserving and circulating queer and feminist archives,” says Dr. Alexopoulos.
To do so, the team will digitize a sample case study of Polish queer and feminist zines, use that case study to build Polish and Canadian partnerships, and conceptualize an edited collection that expands their collaboration.
Dynda has gathered a unique archive of post-1989 (anarcha) feminist zines in Warsaw as part of her ongoing research and activism. Digitizing this collection and developing an appropriate strategy for its preservation and circulation will contribute to the edited volume.
On July 23rd, the team is hosting a symposium to showcase some of Dynda’s work, and will include other zines and collections by Dr. George Grinnell’s Punk Pedagogy Project. Dynda and Grinnell will present this work in conversation with Alexopoulos and Murphy. This event is free and open to all and will take place at UBC Okanagan in the Sawchuk Theatre from 10am until noon.
Soha Aftab, (BA major in Cultural Studies), is organizing a public event featuring a physical and digital exhibition of a collection of (anarcho)-feminist and queer zines from Poland, alongside a short talk about the value and importance of these zines, by Aftab. The event will take place on August 10th from 4:30-6 in the Okanagan Special Collections, there will also be a zine-making workshop that encourages people to make their own zines as a form of research creation.
This visit is made possible with support from the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, and funding from the International Visiting Scholar fund through the Office of the Vice President, Research and Innovation at UBC Okanagan. Aftab’s summer research is supported by the FCCS International Student Research Award.
Dr. Barbara Dynda, Visiting Scholar in Residence with the ReMedia Infrastructure for Research and Creation
About Dr. Barbara Dynda
Dr. Barbara Dynda is a post-doctoral researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on feminist and queer grassroots culture, history and activism in post-socialist era. She is a recipient of a Duke University scholarship and research grants from the Polish National Science Centre. Dynda is a member of research projects: CCINDLE (coordinated by University of Amsterdam) and QUEER IT (Humboldt University in Berlin and University of Warsaw). Her work has been published, among others, by Routledge, University of Toronto Press, and Atlantis. She is currently working on a book about Polish anarcho-feminist and queer zines, which will be published by the University of Massachusetts Press in fall 2026.