Modern Africa Zine Project

Created by Lydia Guterman, MEd Candidate, Salem State University. Last updated: May 11, 2022.

For your final project, you will be making a zine about a topic of your choice relating to modern Africa. Below is lots of information on zines, possible topics, and how to get started with your research! 

Image: The Floating Music Hub in Cape Verde. Source: Kriolscope agency. 

Choosing a Topic

You do not have many constraints for choosing your topic—after all, you have a whole continent to think about! In order to choose a topic, you will want to do some pre-research, or presearch, to start generating ideas. If you already are set on a topic, wonderful! If not, take a look at some e-resources that we have access to and just do some exploring around. You'll be able to use these same sources later, too, when you have a research question. You can also take a look at our Resources A-Z page for more databases. 

• Gale In Context: Global Issues > Analyze important global issues and events through topic overviews, international viewpoints, news, and multimedia content.

• Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints > Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues.

• Newsela > News articles and videos for current events, history, science, humanities, and more. You set your own reading level. Sign in with Google using your school account.

• The New York Times (Gale) >  Search the full text of The New York Times (starting in 1985). Updated daily. Lydia's tip: use the regular New York Times site (nytimes.com) and when you find an article that is interesting, look up the full text in the Gale database. 

• BlackPast.org > This site is an online reference center on African American and Global African history. Taking a look through the Global African History section may lead you to a topic that you want to learn more about!

We also have several ebook and print resources you can look through. Here are just a few. You can always look at our library catalog for more! Our collection includes...

• The Making of Modern Africa (2014) 

• Ecological Issues (2014)

• New Encyclopedia of Africa (2008)

• Evolution of Africa's Major Nations: Zimbabwe (2013)

• More ebooks about/related to Africa

Possible Topics

In addition to the topics mentioned on your assignment sheet, these are just a few topics that came to mind while creating this pathfinder. You're going to be spending a substantial amount of time on the project, so make sure you like your topic! What interests you? 

• Architecture 

• Akoin

• EndSARS

• Visual artists like Wangechi Mutu or Chéri Samba

• National parks like Serengeti, Etosha, Virunga, or Amboseli 

• 2010 FIFA World Cup and eviction crisis 

• Tourism

• European museums and universities returning looted African artifacts

Keywords

So, you've picked a topic and now you're ready to research. It's time for keywords. Keywords are the search terms you use to find information about a topic or research question in a database. If you've ever looked in the index of a nonfiction book to find something, then you have seen tons of examples of keywords!

Keyword tips: 

Use quotation marks to find complete phrases, especially proper names and titles. For example:

• "wangechi mutu" 

• "world cup"

• "serengeti national park"

Combine keywords to get articles that match each of your important concepts. For example:

• "world cup" AND eviction

• akon AND cryptocurrency

• zimbabwe AND revolution AND music

Check your spelling when you are searching. Sometimes a misspelled word prevents you from finding all of the resources you can!

Zines

For your final project, you will be submitting your work in the form of a zine. Zines are self-published print booklets/pamphlets that are usually produced in small batches. The UNC Chapel Hill Libraries has a great blog post with more detail on the history of zines:  "A Brief History of Zines." Ultimately, we chose zines as the format for this project because of the history of zines being used for subversive purposes. After all, part of this project is subverting stereotypes about modern Africa. 

Examples of zines:

• One Day in Chicago

• Skating with Shes & Hers

• Ants

• Censorship in the U.S.A.

Zine collections: 

• Papercut Zine Library

• Sherwood Forest Zine Library

• Lesley University Zine Library 

• Neta Bomani's zine project (links out to Instagram posts) 

Notes from Class Meetings: 

• On 5/11/22 and 5/12/22 we introduced this project webpage and reviewed these slides.