Intimate ephemera: an investigation of life narratives in Australian zines

This thesis is an investigation of the autobiographical narratives published in Australian perzines. The perzine, or personal zine, is a popular genre of zine-making which takes the author's life and identity as its main subject. Through the close reading of a selection of zines, the analysis presented seeks to develop a methodology for the interpretation of the ephemeral, homemade narratives which circulate within Australian zine culture. In particular, the thesis examines how zines challenge normalised reading habits which are tailored to the mass-produced culture industry by refiguring relationships between readers and writers. The textual, material and distributive features of Australian personal zines are presented as constructing reading and writing practices which value indeterminacy, ephemerality and intimacy in contrast to the mass distribution and anonymity of contemporary popular culture. Rather than contributing to the existing scholarly literature on zines which privileges the ideological and behavioural characteristics of their production, this project takes zine narratives as its focus, arguing for the recognition of the zine medium as a compelling site of contemporary life writing by young writers. Presenting an in-depth study of personal zines as autobiographical form, this thesis analyses the narrative strategies and themes utilised by zone-writers in the presentation of self. This, the aim is to further an understanding of zines as self-published texts by interpreting the selves which are constructed, narrated, published and circulated in the zine medium.