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Durba Mitra

@durba.bsky.social
2K followers 585 following 473 posts

Author of Indian Sex Life (Princeton University Press, 2020) & The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, 2026). writing gender history in the time of gender ideology.

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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 11h
Thank you to colleagues for this thoughtful and incisive book forum on my book, The Future That Was, in Ethnic Studies Review online.ucpress.edu/esr/article/...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 22h
Tomorrow at 4 pm central I will be speaking at the University of Chicago on my book and new work on South Asian American migration and the vexed terrains of women’s organizing before and after 9/11. Thank you to the RDI dept for this wonderful invitation. come through!
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
so exciting to see my book, The Future That Was, on sale now in India (pictured here as a *best seller* at Midland Books in New Delhi) and available for only 565 rupees in paperback online www.amazon.in/Future-That-...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
literally now it is a hellscape for international students. it was not always this way. we can learn from the research of @abbieboggs.bsky.social read her Degrees of Empire fordhampress.com/degrees-of-e...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
on the deep history of slavery and coloniality re Epsteins island of impunity in this essay by @blacklikewho.bsky.social socialtextjournal.org/periscope_ar...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Powerful intervention by Grace Kyungwon Hong on the importance of advocacy for reimagining title ix through the organizing of Survivors + Allies
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Emily Owens and @jennifercnash.bsky.social connect the destruction of WGS to ongoing institutional complicity with sexual violence, deeply relevant re Cornell
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
excellent dossier curated by @kwazana.bsky.social and Tavia Nyong’o socialtextjournal.org/periscope_to... with terrific contributions by @jennifercnash.bsky.social Grace Kyungwon Hong @blacklikewho.bsky.social
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
tomorrow i am delivering the MacAffrey Lecture at Reed College. With thanks to @imperialhistorian.bsky.social and @anandvaidya.bsky.social for the generous invitations cant wait to meet the students!
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I PROMISE IT WON'T JUST BE A DRIVE-BY
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I had the privilege of engaging her papers, open access to all in the Schlesinger Library. I cried in the reading room as I read her handwritten notes for the lecture when i saw her revisions. "We're Here" with "Here" scratched out. "We're Still Here." "And so, Let's get on with it."
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
June Jordan spoke at Barnard College in November of 2001, two months after 9/11, just six months before she died of cancer, in what I found to be the most profound words reflecting on 9/11: "what shall we do, we who did not die?"
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Since 9/11, I have found life in feminist anti-authoritarian, anti-military, anti-carceral thought. I write about it in my book, The Future That Was, from Women Living Under Muslim Laws who declared "vengeance is not justice" 10 days after 9/11 to the defiant mourning of June Jordan in November 2001
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
next monday, I will be speaking about my book, The Future That Was, at Notre Dame. Thanks to the Critical Empire Studies Working Group for the invitation.
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
“Harvard has long starved its WGS program”
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The attack and defunding of WGS at Harvard betrays the long tradition of wgs at Harvard’ with profound implications for the future of feminist scholarship @jennifercnash.bsky.social www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I will be speaking about my book,The Future That Was, at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto on September 28, 2026 at 4 PM EST
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
reflections from Dr. Rounaq Jahan, who cofounded the first research collective on and for women in Bangladesh, recognizing the urgency of studying the lives of women just after the 1971 genocide 😭
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
In the past weeks, several amazing feminists around the world with whom I had the opportunity to conduct oral interviews have been reading my book (here the incomparable Nighat Said Khan) 😳. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to write the lives and ideas of these fierce intellectuals.
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
💜💜💜
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Sheema Kermanj, arrested in May of 2026 alongside six others for organizing Aurat March
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
amazing photograph of Sheema Kermani, detained in May 2026 in a press conference for Aurat March
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
💕
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
my mom makes beautiful things grow
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
my mom makes beautiful things grow
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Nawal El Saadawi at the second feminist book fair, giving the knowing half smile of Nawal El Saadawi
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
like here, an epistemology of lesbian thought, at the 5th annual feminist book fair, including amazing theorists and poets like the extraordinary Dionne Brand, Suniti Namjoshi, Gillian Hanscombe.
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
devastated at the total annihilation of feminist media and independent publishing. We need these ideas now more than ever. In my book, The Future That Was, I document how feminists seized the means of knowledge, creating infrastructures for feminist ideas, like the feminist book fairs of the 80s/90s
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
in solidarity with Dr. Ivan Chaar Lopez, a humanist who works on militarization and surveillance and the US Mexico border, denied at UT Austin this spring as amazing humanities programs are gutted and this nonsense funded instead
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
thanks to Anubha Anushree for this wonderful conversation. Thinking now especially about the vital place of protest and dissent in movements for democratic rights, in solidarity with communities rising up in India now
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
"we were stunned to find that not one would say they regretted their decision to locate their academic career in the field of women’s, gender, & sexuality studies" essay @feministstudies.bsky.social w/interviews where scholars say that, despite attacks & losing jobs, they have no regrets doing WGS
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
powerful piece by @profcrunk.bsky.social on the existential threats levelled at Black women scholars, including Dr. Cooper herself "Black Feminist Waymaking Under Fascism" @feministstudies.bsky.social open access here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/434/arti...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
the key critiques of Third World feminism
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
everyone should read special rapporteur for the right to education Farida Shaheed’s statement following her tour of US universities in April and May of 2024 www.ohchr.org/sites/defaul... criticalnoise.org/feminist-ant...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
For the History of the Present’s Archives of Dissent, I wrote on the deep roots of feminist anti-authoritarianism in UN expert Farida Shaheed’s 2024 report on the destruction of academic freedom in the US criticalnoise.org/feminist-ant... thanks to Anjali Arondekar & @brianconnolly.bsky.social
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
today at Rutgers incredible feminist queer and trans studies scholars on feminist scholarship and teaching in the crisis now history.rutgers.edu/newsandevent...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
SMARTEST PPL in conversation including Disha Jani, Kelvin Ng, and Rebecca Waxman - online FREE Come hang out on your lunch break dartmouth.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
no better study of these restrictions than the PEN America report from Jan 2026, which reveals how 50% of all students in america lived in a state with laws that censored or directly undermined academic freedom,coauthored by the incredible Dr Amy Reid, former chair of WGS at New College Florida
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
*Really* excited to be in conversation with the most amazing and brilliant scholars Disha Jani, Kelvin Ng, and Rebecca Waxman ONLINE next Tuesday, April 28th, at 12:15 PM on Zoom. Register here: dartmouth.zoom.us/webinar/regi... Thank you to colleagues at Dartmouth for the invite!
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
truly amazing to be in conversation with you @incommensurati.bsky.social such *brilliant* insights into the ongoing reversals against the legal rights of trans peoples across the global south 🔥cannot wait for more collaboration
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I will be speaking about my book, The Future That Was, at Yale today at 5 PM, HQ 276 yrihs.yale.edu/news/future-...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
tonight, I will be in conversation with Professor Brandon Terry about The Future That Was, Harvard Book Store, 7 PM
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
i am lucky to be in conversation with @laprofelgp.bsky.social and Professor Chandra Mohanty 🦄
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
this Tuesday I will be speaking about my book, The Future That Was, with fabulous responses from Adom Getachew, Pratap B Mehta, and Camille Robcis at Columbia Law School at 6 PM register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I will be delivering a talk about my new book, The Future That Was, at Yale University on Thursday, April 9th at 5 PM.
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
as I write about in The Future That Was, feminists teach us what it means to stand against war. "For more than 110 years, WILPF has warned that militarism is not a response to insecurity—it is one of its root causes." March 2, 2026 www.wilpf.org/wp-content/u... press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
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