The following passage is written by Malana Krongelb Brown University class of 2019 and the Pembroke Center's student curator of the Malana Krongelb zine collection.
Zines and zine collections uplift personal narratives, often allowing people who would otherwise be excluded from mainstream publication to make their voices heard. Because of this, and my unique position as student curator, archivist, and zinester, I am choosing to write the biographical note for this collection in the first person.
I was born January 5th, 1995 in Poughkeepsie, New York. I have a mixed ethnic, racial (Black/white, or African American/Eastern European Jewish), religious, and class background. I matriculated into Brown in fall 2013 and my time at Brown has allowed me to grow into celebrating various parts of my identity. However, the transition to Brown as a disabled, queer woman of color was difficult. During my second semester on campus, a graduate student sexually harassed me, and the gendered, racialized, and ableist dynamics of which left me feeling silenced. Amidst a backdrop of protests against former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, a failed movement to get Brown to divest from the coal industry, and massive Title IX investigations, my first year at Brown left me riddled with anxiety and a desire to be heard.
It wasn't until I helped create a zine entitled silence + voice with the on-campus feminist publication bluestockings magazine that I finally felt that I had a voice. Before this project I had never heard of a zine, but their transformative power immediately pervaded my consciousness. The following semester, I handed a copy of silence + voice to Brown University President Christina Paxson at a Sexual Assault Task Force open forum.
In November 2014, I sustained a serious concussion, just a short time after the Sexual Assault Task Force meeting. During my subsequent year-long leave from Brown I once again needed a way to express myself. For one of the classes I needed to finish, I pitched a grant application to start a zine collection at the Sarah Doyle Women's Center. I wanted a way to heal not only the multiple traumas I had experienced, but also to provide a way for people to communally heal, learn, and express themselves. Hearing about the successes and pain around Brown student organizing for Indigenous People's Day and the first reading of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow only crystallized my desire to make the zine collection happen.
Coming back after a year to a place that felt both familiar and foreign, I felt especially devastated when Brown's Creative Arts Council denied my grant application. Distressed but not deterred, I applied again. This one was accepted. So was the next grant application, and the next one, and the one after that. In 2016, I began building the collection, and I was thrilled.
Shortly thereafter, students, classes, and Providence community members started to use the collection. People told me they had never seen themselves represented before they read particular zines; that reading the zines helped with their depression; or that a zine completely changed their perspective. Students started donating zines they had made for classes that were inspired by the collection.
On February 1st, 2017, the collection officially launched with a series of events including a queer zine workshop hosted by Barnard Library's Jenna Freedman. It was at the zine open house that I met Mary Murphy, the Nancy L. Buc '65 Pembroke Center Archivist. We discussed starting a partner archival collection to address the fact that many of the zines -- particularly zines by people of color -- and the histories contained within are rapidly disappearing. The current iteration of the zine collection combines communal accessibility with long-term preservation. While I realize there are gaps in the collection, I hope the collection embraces diversity and transformation. The space provided shows that the voices in the collection are legitimate within the academy, and also that these voices were never illegitimate to begin with.
The Malana Krongelb zine collection consists of 9 linear feet of administrative files and zines that focus on social justice and marginalized identities, dating from 1974 to 2018. Areas of strength include zines by and about people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer peoples, disabled people, interpersonal violence, sex and relationships, sex work, the prison industrial complex, self-care, feminism, and punk.
Series 1, ADMINISTRATIVE, 2016-2018, consists of correspondence from zine artists and distributors such as Brown Recluse Zine Distro, Look Mum Distro, and Zines Rasquache. Administrative files also include ephemera, such as postcards, flyers, buttons, and stickers. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type.
Series 2, ZINES BY SUBJECT, 1974-2017, consists of zines, with a particular focus on intersexuality, equality, and gender difference. This series is arranged alphabetically by main subject then title which contains author's name when available. Secondary subjects are listed at the end of each title. This organizational scheme was chosen because zines often touch upon various topics within a single issue. Titles of particular interest include bluestockings magazine, a Brown University, Providence-based zine that challenges dominant media narratives by centering communities systematically excluded from those discourses; Muchacha, a Latina feminist fanzine; SPACE zines (Space in Prison for Creative Arts and Expression), a zine that highlights the voices of incarcerated individuals in Rhode Island; Joyce Hatton's Think About the Bubbles #8, which chronicles the zinester's struggles with cancer as a poor black woman; and Queer Indigenous Girl, a zine highlighting intersectional identities and activism.
Series 3, Additions. The zines in this Series have been collected and curated by Brown University library staff. They have been deliberately separated from the rest of the collection to maintain the integrity of the original collection of zines gathered and curated by Malana Krongelb (Series 2). This series uses the same categories to organize the zines by subject as in Series 2.
Term Selection
Since part of what makes zines radical is that they resist categorization, deciding where to house zines proved difficult. Here is some clarification on the cataloging choices of the archivists.
The term IDENTITIES (fat identities, trans identities, disabled identities, Asian identities, etc.) is used to assert the significance, multiplicity, and complexity of people's identities. For example, a zine about being fat (most likely) does not analyze obesity rates like an academic article; it instead discuss the experience and/or political identity of fatness. Using "identities" gives the power back to the zinesters who share this knowledge, rather than using pathologizing terminology. It is also purposely plural to recognize that there is no one way to be fat. While identity politics can be limiting, we seek to put these works together to show possibilities for affinity and coalition building.
ABORTION is separated from gynecology because researchers often specifically search for the term, "abortion." It should be noted that some sexual health and gynecological resources are cis-centric and contradictory to other parts of the collection.
ART AND ACTIVISM refers to zines specifically addressing those two topics in their content. Art and art culture features art and photo zines and discussions of art institutions. Zine and print culture includes zines discussing zine tours, distros, and zine making, as well as things like radical bookstores and librarianship.
Chicanx identities, Latinx identities, and Filipinx identities have an x at the end to be gender neutral.
Zines regarding EATING DISORDERS are separated from those about disabled identities and mental illness because researchers often search for eating disorders specifically. The terms DISABLES IDENTITIES and MENTAL ILLNESS are included as part of the folder title.
Zines first and foremost categorized under FEMINISM refers specifically to zines where that is the main category. The entire collection is arguably feminist, and this categorization ignores how, for example, a Black feminist standpoint is present in several zines but without the use of the word feminism.
HOUSING AND HOMELESNESS refers to the physical and political idea of housing, while Home refers to the idea of home in the abstract (i.e. moving and not having a sense of home). While many activists have advocated for the term houselessness because many houseless people have a home, we chose to use homelessness because of its searchability.
INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE is used as an umbrella term for sexual assault, incest, rape, stalking, domestic violence, harassment, etc. Specific types of violence have been specified in the folder title when possible.
MENTAL ILLNESS is separated from disabled identities because of how often people search for mental illness specifically. The term disabled identities is included in the folder title.
MULTIRACIAL IDENTITIES refers to people of mixed race identity discussing that identity. Multiracial identities does NOT refer to several monoracial people of different races in one zine. In order to decenter whiteness and combat anti-Blackness, zines by multiracial people addressing a specific part of their identity are housed with that identity.
QUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE OF COLOR as a file location refers to zines that are compilation zines -- zines by multiple authors -- of queer and trans people of color.
WOMEN OF COLOR as a file location signifies that the zine's organizing principle is around women of color and not any other category. There are hundreds of zines by women and femmes of color in the collection, but few that are not specific to other identities or topics.
There are restrictions on use of this collection. Digitization of the contents of zines is prohibited. Covers of zines may be digitized, but for all other digitization, researchers must obtain permission to digitize from the zines' creators.
All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the John Hay Library are requested to complete a Notice of Intent to Publish, available on the John Hay Library website or by request, prior to reproducing, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Malana Krongelb zine collection, Ms.2017.007, Box [#], Folder [#], Pembroke Center Archives, John Hay Library, Brown University.
The collection is arranged in 2 series.
There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Gift of Malana Krongelb with assistance from the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women in 2017.
This collection was part of the Pembroke Center's Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive until 2024 when collections were recataloged. All collections previously grouped under that title are now searchable under the subject headings "Women and Gender at Brown University" or "Feminist Activism in Rhode Island."
Zines acquired by Brown University staff after 2017 will be added to this collection in Series 3 to gather zines into one collection for ease of use by researchers while maintaining the integrity of the zine collection as created by Malana Krongelb (Series 2).
The sister collection to the Malana Krongelb Zine Collection is held at the Sarah Doyle Women's Center. This collection contains similar titles and is available for research. For more information, contact the Sarah Doyle Women's Center at 401-863-2189 or sdwc@brown.edu.