HIS 196H Fall 2025 Zine Guide

HIS196H: COVID-19 & Black Lives Matter: Comparative, Crisis-based Oral History in the American Experience

Course Description
The impact of the global pandemic COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement will be studied in the context of 20th Century American History. This experiential course-based undergraduate research (CURE) experience will comparatively examine milestone historical events from social, economic, political, and cultural perspectives that illustrate the intersectionality between disease and struggles for social justice. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 and the Race Riots of 1919-1920; the early 1950s polio epidemic and the 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement; and the 1980s HIV-AIDS pandemic and the Gay Rights Movement are substantively linked to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement but separated by 100 years, 60-70 years, and 40 years ago respectively. Oral history interviews pertaining to these events will serve as primary source materials and offer oral history models for student-conducted COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement oral history interviews

This guide is for students in Professor Iacullo-Bird's classes, to learn about the making, writing, printing, and publishing of zines and related self- or independent publications as they relate to the themes of this class. I recommend you select a zine with a clear socio-political theme or subject to write about. 

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