Radical Digital Archives

Critical Theory Archive

The University of California, Irvine has an archive dedicated to critical theory. Its collection strengths include:

Aesthetics

Criticism

Deconstruction

Derrida, Jacques

Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976

Language and languages -- Philosophy

Literature -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.

Literature -- Philosophy

Philosophy

Postmodernism

Reader-response criticism

"Femme à Barbe" This zine was put together in 2009 by JB, the creator of Doykeit Front cover  Black and white with a green background, illustration of a topless Marie Curie at a table with chemistry instruments, text telling a fictitious account about her

Back cover Two illustrations, each of a person who exhibits "masculine" and "feminine" traits, as well as contact information

pgs. 1-2  Table of contents in handwritten script, copyleft

"On Being Hard Femme" pg. 2 Contents List 

pg. 3-5, Introduction Essay by Jackie Wang describing what lead to the creation of this zine and what it means to her.

pg. 11, illustration of a hairy leg wearing a high heeled shoe

"On Being Hard Femme" by Jackie Wang was first published and distributed in 2009. This zine is an attempt to explain what being "hard femme" means to her and how it it gives her an identity which allows her to reconcile her desire to both wear dresses and get dirty.  It is also an attempt to move beyond or broaden the narrow definitions of "butch/femme" identities. Front and back covers. It can be purchased here: http://pioneerspress.com/catalog/zines/3021

"Doykeit"

Page 1:  Contains a handwritten description of the word Doykeit and a type quote by Judith Butler about Jews speaking out against injustice, particularly in a post WWII context. Page 2:  Contains two pieces of handwritten text which describe the zine Doykeit itself and the motivations and intentions behind it.  There is also a typed quote by Rudolph Rocker from The London Years regarding social ideas, Jewish workers, and the libertarian movement in Britain.

So, as a fair warning, we, the RAD chives, do not own a scanner, we apologize if the quality of these pictures is not great, in the future we hope to use an SLR camera until such time as we can acquire or borrow the use of someone else's scanner.

This first zine is entitled "Doykeit", and it was created by Jenna Brager or JB.  "JB is originally from Reisterstown, Maryland and is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park with a B.A. in American Studies and a certificate in LGBT Studies. JB is currently living in New Jersey and working on a PhD in Gender Studies, while trying to keep up with drawing comics, making zines and writing letters to pen pals. Like Jay-Z, JB is a Sagittarius.", as taken from the sassyfrasscircus.com contact/portfolio page.

Doykeit is described by the creator on their storenvy site sassyfrasscircus.storenvy.com as, "Doykeit compilation zine seeks to speak to the cross-sections of Jewish and queer/feminist identification and how these might inform an anti-Zionist or Palestinian solidarity politic. The concept of ‘doykeit,’ Yiddish for ‘hereness,’ is taken from the pre-World War II Polish-Jewish group The Bund, which believed that Jews have both a right to live and a political commitment to work for change ‘here and now.’ Front and back covers.

Here is a small glimpse into the work we have been doing over the quarter, Lane is pictured with their tub'o'zines, which they have provided to start our collection with.   Next you can see Lane and Liz working on projects like our twitter account and our mission statement. In the final photograph you can see Angie and Sarah doing some rough appraisal of the items in Lane's collection.

We are a group of four UCLA students working towards our degrees in MLIS, Master of Library and Information Science, focusing on topics ranging from community archiving to ethno-musicology. The creation of this Tumblr page, which is acting as the digital repository for the RADchives, came out of a project for the class Community Based Archives, which we are all taking this quarter, Winter 2014. It is our intention that this Tumblr blog will, as stated above, act as the digital repository for an online archive that we are creating, known as RADchives or the Radical Digital Archives.  It is our intention to document & digitally preserve zines and ephemera from radical & queer movements and communities.  It is our hope that YOU, the members of these movements & communities will be able to use this site not only to learn about, read, and access zines and ephemera that you may not be able to locally, but to also connect with other users of this site to create a larger digital community of radical & queer activists.

We will be posting items from our own collections and we hope that you will also submit your own posts including both images and descriptions of the zines and ephemera that you posses in your own collection(s). Our collection guidelines can be found [HERE], if you think your material fits those guidelines please submit it.