Welcome to the Anthropozine

Back in the late twentieth century, when cut and paste still meant scissors and glue, desktop publishing opened many doors for a creative person with something to say. We dubbed  these homebrewed screeds “zines” and reproduced them by photocopier. They were distributed not by webpage and email but left stacked next to alternative newsweeklies or sold for cheap at record stores.  Drugs and sex and politics were the dominant themes, and their chaotic aesthetic served as witness to a strong DIY ethic inherited from our punk ancestors. They were cheeky and irreverent, occasionally they were even good. In many respects they were the analog precursor to the blogs of today.

Anthropozine.
Anthropozine | April 2015

With this nod to the past, let us turn now to the future for I am excited to announce the launch of a new venue for undergraduate authors, Anthropozine, lovingly inspired by the ’90s zines of yore. Sure its a PDF now, but don’t let that stop you from running off a few hard copies on the departmental printer while no one’s looking. The publication carries a Creative Commons license making it easy for you to share with your students by email, over listservs, or social networks. Anthropozine is published jointly with Anthropology Now, a peer reviewed journal from Routledge with a special vision to make available illustrated works from leading scholars that are written for a general audience. Think of it as something like a missing link between scholarly journal and a popular magazine. If you are a member of the AAA’s General Anthropology Division you already have electronic access to the journal, but there is a fair amount of free content available at http://anthronow.com.

My colleague Andria Timmer and I have signed up to shepherd the first six issues of Anthropozine and we would be grateful for your support in getting this work to students. Our tagline is “Anthropology unleashing creativity” because we are most interested in publishing works that explore the relationship between students’ personal experience and their encounter with anthropology. Take a look inside and you’ll what we mean.

Students, if you are reading this, you do not need to have original research or even be an anthropology major to write for Anthropozine. If anthropology has intersected with things that have happened in your life then tell us your story! If you want to get in on the action check the call for submissions inside the PDF or visit our workspace at http://anthropozine.wordpress.com.

The September issue will be themed around “The Body,” for best results please submit by June 15. The December issue will open topic and comes with a October 15 submission date. Feel free to direct any questions to matt.anthropozine@gmail.com, we look forward to seeing your work.

Our April issue is all about Food and you can download it by clicking the link above or visit our homepage at http://anthronow.com/anthropozine. Enjoy!

Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson is Project Cataloger at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and currently working on a CLIR ‘hidden collections’ grant to describe the museum’s collection of early 20th Century photography. He has a doctorate in anthropology from the University of North Carolina and a Masters in information science from the University of Tennessee.

2 thoughts on “Welcome to the Anthropozine

  1. If you have a student that wants to write in a non-English language then I would ask that you commit to helping me with the editorial process.

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