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Dr Kush Patel

@kshpatel.bsky.social
1.1K followers 826 following 180 posts

critical DH pedagogy; queer- and trans-feminist digital technologies; community archives and bibliographies; art, architecture, infrastructure, and the city | educator, writer, public scholar | use: they/them whospeaksandacts.net

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
What does it mean to cultivate tenderness in the face of academic patriarchy, to name and uplift the care labor of your colleagues, and to do so ongoingly lest the very pursuit of scholarship and program building be reduced to the ever so loud and individualizing I. It’s been that kind of a week.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This month’s Felt Notes 💌 are about gratitude, about continuing to practice what I value deeply, about marking the beginnings of the Just Futures Co-lab’s fifth year (!), and about my most recent exhibition pop-up and community extensions at the University of Sydney: buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
The Gen Z protestors have shown what radical love can look like . . . invoking Bhagat Singh, Ashfaquallah Khan, Ramprasad Bismil. [But] who will tell them that they've [also] inherited the legacy of Anitha, Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi, Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam? www.thenewsminute.com/news/the-hin...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Yesterday’s serendipitous meeting with the people of Obsidian Bookshop at a local market pop-up was lovely. I picked up a copy of “Or: An Autobiography,” a self-described poetic assemblage and an homage to androgyny and the non-binary, building upon and with Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Hello, Sydney.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
My thanks to the organizing committee for extending such a warm invitation to deliver the conference keynote online. To talk about care labour tied to leading and stewarding a queer- and trans-feminist DH lab against academic patriarchy felt just right in the present. amu.edu.pl/en/welcome-c...
amu.edu.pl
International conference ‘Queer: Present! Visibility Through the Body’ - Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Soon, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, will become a forum for the exchange of ideas during the international academic conference
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Back to the city of joy, where walking to places and with people—sweatily and (un)hurriedly—is everyday life. If yesterday was all about the central city (peaking at Hogg Market), today will be at a local queer archive and among its publics. The image is from a once alive bird site three years ago.
This week, I've been experiencing new recesses in and connected to the memory lanes of a city otherwise familiar; a city always made visceral by the large pedestal fans of a musty bookshop, or one where queerness comes to life in the most ordinary of sweaty convos in transit. The experience of new and protective nooks in the memory lanes of a city once lived continue into this week, thanks to encounters both serendipitous and long awaited. The heat feels different here but the warmth of these connections underpins our queer and trans everydayness. Two tweets each from June 21, 2023, and June 27, 2023.
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Mary Valante @medievalmaryq.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Where fiber history meets Pride. This is a large piece (10x28') of one of the two original 30x60' pride flags, the only known surviving section of either. They were designed, hand dyed and sewn by a community of queer artists. The colors are slightly different from most rainbow flags today.
smithsonianmag.com
Long-Lost Fragment of First Rainbow Pride Flag Resurfaces After Four Decades
The brilliantly colored banner—now on view in San Francisco—flew on "Gay Freedom Day" in 1978
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Concluding with grounded practices of hope and a shout-out to Mariame Kaba, we—@acarantomorford.bsky.social, @arungapatchka.bsky.social, and I—see "hope as an infrastructure itself, cobuilt in connection with lands, waters, and cyberspace, moving us to BYOI: as Build Your Otherwise Infrastructure."
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
On June 11, 2:30pm AEST // 10am IST, @specksofthings.bsky.social and I are hosting an Online Office Hour during #IAW2026, the theme of which is #ArchivesForJustice. Access the meeting link here (thejustarchivescollaboratory.hcommons.org) and join us to learn about the project or say hi over a cuppa.
A portrait mode poster in blue tinting that depicts a table in the foreground on top of which are images of print and handwritten archival materials held at QAMRA (Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection and Activism) Bengaluru, India. Towards the background is a monitor on which appears a frame image from a video in the archive. On the wall in the background of the image are various printed papers pinned to the wall. The text on the poster reads as follows: Online Office Hours, Thursday, June 11, 2026, 2:30 pm AEST and 10 am IST for the Dialogue Series CFP. The project title is The Just Archives Collaboratory and the subtitle is queer and trans archives, care, ethics, and histories.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
On June 11, 2:30pm AEST // 10am IST, @specksofthings.bsky.social and I are hosting an Online Office Hour during #IAW2026, the theme of which is #ArchivesForJustice. Access the meeting link here (thejustarchivescollaboratory.hcommons.org) and join us to learn about the project or say hi over a cuppa.
A portrait mode poster in blue tinting that depicts a table in the foreground on top of which are images of print and handwritten archival materials held at QAMRA (Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection and Activism) Bengaluru, India. Towards the background is a monitor on which appears a frame image from a video in the archive. On the wall in the background of the image are various printed papers pinned to the wall. The text on the poster reads as follows: Online Office Hours, Thursday, June 11, 2026, 2:30 pm AEST and 10 am IST for the Dialogue Series CFP. The project title is The Just Archives Collaboratory and the subtitle is queer and trans archives, care, ethics, and histories.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Check out this month’s Felt Notes 💌 on Power (buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...) or the coming together of worlds from graduating lab works, lab pop-ups, Vikalp, and SSSHARC to The Just Archives Collaboratory site, archival bootcamp, and resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in DH book chapter
buttondown.com
Power
ID: The Just Futures Co-lab Pop-Up called “Queer Passages” for, with, and at Vikalp’s Art Exhibition on May 28, 2026. Queer Passages brought together...
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Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Announcing the release of the online, open-access edition of _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ (in Debates in DH series): dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/cri.... Editors: Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, James Smihties @jamessmithies.bsky.social). Print ed. appeared January 2026
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu
Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities
This volume reimagines the digital humanities (DH) through the expanding field of critical infrastructure studies as it explores how DH builds on and extends the field’s theories and technologies. Inc...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
The @jitp.bsky.social issue 29 deadline is approaching. @bynikkibarnes.bsky.social, Asma Neblett, and I are co-editing this issue—and we welcome works that rethink making in DH, incl, but not limited to, situated critiques of labor, power, and colonial oppression cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/jitp-ca...
The JITP or Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Call for Issue 29 Submissions on Rethinking Making in the Digital Humanities. This call considers questions such as: one, how do making epistemologies shape our use of and approach to digital tools and techniques; two, how have we come to understand the form, constitution, genealogies, and politics of digital tools and techniques through making practices; and c) what new vocabularies of partnership, praxes of anti-oppression, and approaches to making labor visible through making practices? The submissions deadline is June 5, 2026. The image text is in black set against sky blue background and with lighter blue information bubbles each on website link, deadline, and call for submissions.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Meeting N++l after a few months and since their successful top surgery is sheer happiness. There’s still so much to talk, for me to learn, and for us to catch up on life and after care in these times. Such has been the experiences of this week w/ and alongside the Vikalp art exhibition: heartening.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
The pop-up had curiosity, heart, and translation in languages more than one, thanks especially to Maya who facilitated these connections brilliantly. Folx had seats at the table; the video offered a context for discussions; and we moved w/ and between the hypertexts and lab resources in group talks.
People seated at a long linear table with four laptop computers on one side and a table runner print in brown on the other side. The table also has sheets of paper in pink and white, and is helmed by Maya Sharma at the end and a television unit behind her, playing a video with a view of a similar tabletop setting from the Just Futures Co-lab. The exposed brickwork of the walls is contrasted with visual art work on each of the longer sides of the gallery.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
The Just Futures Co-lab will be setting up a pop-up display at Vikalp’s exhibition next week. Being part of the curatorial team, I’m also eager to be in community w/ artists and cultural organizers as we ask questions about the aesthetics of resistance, incl. values normativized w/in queer cultures.
The poster of the art exhibition entitled Dialogues of Collective Solidarity led by Vikalp Women’s Group, hosted by Nau Foundation, and supported by Samvedana Foundation in Vadodara. The exhibition will run from May 23rd to May 31st in the evening hours from 5pm to 8pm each day. The core poster text reads as follows: In these times of global strife, Vikalp brings together contemporary artists from the LGBTQIA+ community and allies working in visual, textual, and performance art. The exhibition is an invitation into a space of reflection, healing, and repair, and a collective dialogue across identities and communities as we locate solidarity and freedom at the heart of queerness. All text is in color black and set against the background image of a clear blue sky with soft wooly clouds and green trees.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
It’s the eve of my students’ graduate show and final exhibition as members of The Just Futures Co-lab—and I couldn’t be more enlivened by the work that has come into being and the worlds that we will continue to build moving forward.
An invitation poster from the MA Contemporary Art Practice and MDes Human Centered Design students at The Just Futures Co-lab on Srishti Manipal campus announcing the Graduate Show dates of May 16th and May 17th, 2026. The exhibition titled Acts of Knowing will run from 10am to 5pm on both days and the accompanying programming will include a performance and film screening in their respective studio and lab spaces. The poster in white and with the  text in black has colored dots and a colorful lab seal.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Placing the @jitp.bsky.social Issue 29 CFP on “Rethinking Making in DH: Critiques and Pedagogies That Transform” in dialogue w/ @literaturegeek.bsky.social’s excellent thread. See here and consider submitting: cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/jitp-ca... (full manuscripts are due June 5, 2026)
cuny.manifoldapp.org
Call for Submissions | Call for Submissions | Manifold @CUNY
Transforming scholarly publications into living digital works
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
A tiny letter and another felt note 💌 from the Just Futures Co-lab on “Collaging Selves” by Tash: buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
buttondown.com
Collaging Selves
ID: A collage of images of the walls of The Just Futures Co-lab at Srishti Manipal and the walls and poster from my recent home show against a black...
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Mariko Bennett @nachoriko.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Today, @specksofthings.bsky.social and I, with Aiden Magro, launched The Just Archives Collaboratory site on @kcommons.bsky.social, where we've outlined the project purpose; linked our queer and trans archives' workshop resources; and posted a series CFP: thejustarchivescollaboratory.hcommons.org
thejustarchivescollaboratory.hcommons.org
THE JUST ARCHIVES COLLABORATORY – queer and trans archives—care, ethics, histories
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
For @jitp.bsky.social issue 29, we welcome submissions that rethink making in DH through reflections on bodies, lands, and infrastructures both implicated in and impacted by making practices and as discourses on labor, power, and colonial oppression among others: cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/jitp-ca...
cuny.manifoldapp.org
Call for Submissions | Call for Submissions | Manifold @CUNY
Transforming scholarly publications into living digital works
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Ending one of the most unkind and difficult weeks of this month with hope in the respective works of a forthcoming trans-feminist DH project review and my doctoral student’s successful pre-proposal defense. In community, to know and to feel that knowing, is power.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 24/03/2026
“Many discussions still approach AI primarily as a digital technology, but in many of these countries, AI is becoming visible through the infrastructures that sustain it: data centers, mineral extraction, energy demand, water-intensive cooling systems, and digital labor chains…”
restofworld.org
From Chile to the Philippines, meet the people pushing back on AI
Individuals and communities are resisting the demands and practices of Big Tech's AI infrastructure — such as data centers and digital labor — due to their environmental and social costs.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Futurity // Felt Notes, March 24, 2026 // The Just Futures Co-lab // buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
“it would deny ppl IDs, medical boards would examine ppl that need no examination, transmen would be declared to have never existed, intersex persons would be reframed as req correction, social workers will be afraid to support persons w/o yet a lang for what they feel” theleaflet.in/leaflet-repo...
theleaflet.in
Architecture of Erasure: How the Trans Amendment Bill 2026 erases those it claims to protect
Amidst a global backsliding on trans rights, India’s new amendment threatens to erase, forget, retrospectively deny and breach into the lives of trans-people, unmaking all that the NALSA judgment had ...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill 2026 is listed for passing in Parliament next week. Please read and sign the letter to help build a critical volume of resistance and refusal.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Back in Vikalp where the work of organizing around art and queer freedom is being inflected by the sheer immediacy of organizing against the supremely unconstitutional Transgender Persons Amendment Bill released this week.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
People reading a text each while seated on benches and window sills encircling a set of sculptural elements in a warehouse.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
In this month's Felt Notes 💌, I talk about the Feminist Solidarities Reading Circle held in the context of Prabhakar Kamble's "Vichitra Natak" at Kochi Biennale. The central gravestone w/ Dr Ambedkar’s clarion call “ANNIHILATION OF CASTE" is what we remain oriented to: buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
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we here®️ @wehere.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
thank you for everything you did for we here and for the library and information science profession, fobazi. you were an incredible friend, thinker, writer, supporter. you’ll be dearly missed 🤍
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Among Queers and Queens, and with our many sharings and laughs all throughout the night, my heart is full. The effervescence with which Maya holds space for us is inimitable, bringing the words and worlds of "Footprints of a Queer History" to life in more ways than one.
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Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy @jitp.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Have you thought about submitting something to JITP but your idea didn’t quite fit with our themed issues? Submit to our **GENERAL ISSUE** by December 15th and show us how you think about the intersection of teaching, learning, and research with technology. See you in our inbox!
Call for Submissions
Issue 28: General Issue
The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) seeks scholarly work at the intersection of teaching, learning, and research with technology
• Textual and multimedia submissions - interdisciplinary approaches in humanities, sciences, and social sciences welcome
• Audio/visual presentations, interviews, dialogues, or conversations; creative/artistic works; manifestos; or other scholarly materials and/or methodologies - work addressing labor and care considerations of teaching and creating projects with digital technology
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Embracing all heightened engagements with a local queer-trans archive as we collectively and uniquely continue to build and support it in our varied capacities. That these entanglements have their own specificities make the question of how and why we came to do this work equally alive and brilliant.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
In this month’s Felt Notes 💌, I share my reflections on being in community at the Ashoka CWC annual conference on “A Song Called Teaching,” as well as the experience of producing an off-campus DH pop-up lab to mark the latest transdisciplinary research cycle at SMI. buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
buttondown.com
Movements
ID: To Tash [center], my sincerest thanks for extending such a warm welcome to New Delhi, first by hosting me at the YP Foundation and subsequently by...
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
In this month’s Felt Notes 💌, I share my reflections on being in community at the Ashoka CWC annual conference on “A Song Called Teaching,” as well as the experience of producing an off-campus DH pop-up lab to mark the latest transdisciplinary research cycle at SMI. buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...
buttondown.com
Movements
ID: To Tash [center], my sincerest thanks for extending such a warm welcome to New Delhi, first by hosting me at the YP Foundation and subsequently by...
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Imagine how miserable it must be to experience the world without wonder and delight. Everyone in power right now: no curiosity, no kindness — just power and “prestige” and profit. So pathetic. Dangerous and destructively consequential, of course, but also tragic. Protect the weird and wonderful.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Admissions to the MA Contemporary Art Practice program at Srishti Manipal are ongoing and would interest folx keen on making, theorizing, and researching art and cultural production in society with and beyond GLAM careers. Learn more: srishtimanipalinstitute.in/academics-ov...
An announcement poster for admissions to the MA Contemporary Art Practice program at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, India, involving fine art, text and performance, public art, digital humanities, and moving image art. The image on the poster is that of an installation of 36 cloth panels of A5 size with charcoal sketches of human animal bonds in Uttarakhand by Vaishali. The project is an outcome of the MA CAP transdisciplinary research unit on art, media, and community led by Aastha Chauhan from September to November 2024.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
I'll be dedicating today's event to Joshua Clover, who gave us critical karaoke, a form of research writing w/ music that also amplified our work this sem. Equally, a shout-out to Karen Tongson for orchestrating a brilliant critical karaoke at HISS 25. My gratitude for both: in memory, in community.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
This Saturday (May 3), students and I will conclude our five-week transdisciplinary research project intensive w/ an off-campus Co-lab pop-up and public engagement, involving a critical karaoke performance; a table-top play of individual interactive hypertexts; and a DH index reading and discussion!
An A4 size poster titled Queer- and Trans-Feminist DH and Critical Making, announcing postgraduate research and public engagement session scheduled for Saturday, May 3, 2025, from 2:00-4:00 pm on the first floor of Sandhya PG Mess in Yelahanka New Town, Bengaluru. The event marks the culmination of a five-week research intensive at the Just Futures Co-lab and doubles up as a lab pop-up in the larger neighborhood of Srishti Manipal campus. The graphic images on the poster resemble Twine passages and each box or passage is titled Critical Karaoke, Interactive Hypertext Prototypes, and DH Index respectively. The title text and sub-text are in bright pink and the schedule information is in black. The bottom text acknowledges lab members in lower-case alphabetical order of anu, anwesha, eyeshaan, kush, ruhani, shae. The poster details are set against a graph paper background in light blue.
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K M Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Trans demo Parliament Square today. Thousands at 2 days notice. Check the age of the majority- part of our future
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
I remain proud of how folx come to own the Just Futures Co-lab in and as community each semester and beyond. Extending digital humanities into embodied-material research-creations rooted in care work and justice, this term’s Twine-ries too model our queer- and trans-feminist dreamings powerfully. 💜
A view of the Just Futures Co-lab framing an intimate gathering of lab members seated around a long central table with a television monitor at the end. The walls of the lab have posters and pin-ups and a second table in the foreground carries a potted pothos plant.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Today, and always, making time for reading anti-caste writings. Happy Ambedkar Jayanti!
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
I love when you bring historical fiction to the queer bar in your queer outfit and we imagine a new fictional life with each of our histories.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
And the day ends with an outing and dinner with two fabulous queers, each doing the work of queer pedagogy in the city brilliantly. One of them, my PhD student, has truly been the most welcoming and generous presence for me in Delhi, and for whom, I remain thankful.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
As I get ready for my talk at the Ashoka CWC annual conference on “A Song Called Teaching,” I’m thinking with and holding close to my heart Dr. Sarangapani’s keynote call to restructure higher ed pedagogy around right to life—and to life with dignity—as safeguarded by the Indian Constitution.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
The next Feminist Solidarities Reading Circle will convene at the Just Futures Co-lab on April 14, 2025, to celebrate Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti. The lab will also make Dr. Ambedkar's writings and related anti-caste texts available for community reference and access. Join us!
A poster announcing the next Feminist Solidarities Reading Circle at the Just Futures Co-lab. The circle is scheduled to meet on April 14, 2025, at 2:00 PM to celebrate Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti. Individuals are welcome to bring an Ambedkar writing or a related anti-caste text with them; the lab will also make available a range of published works for community access. The image on top of this announcement is a gallery of 15 brilliantly illustrated anti-caste book covers, including Dr. Ambedkar's most influential Annihilation of Caste.
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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
The joyful experience of turning my semester-long graduate seminar on feminist and queer worldmaking into an intimate reading group where my doctoral student and faculty peer actively co-participate in engaging with texts, technologies, archives, and practices both prescribed and enacted.
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Hannah Alpert-Abrams @halperta.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
I spent the last five years serving public history, arts, and culture at NEH. Please take a moment to let your representatives know you support NEH. Or read on and I can tell you a little bit about why I believe in public funding for the humanities.
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Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy @jitp.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Submissions deadline for our themed issue on minimalist digital humanities pedagogy is June 15 Details here: cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/jitp-ca... Editors are Patricia Belen, @veritas44.bsky.social, @palermog.bsky.social, @danicasavonick.bsky.social and @walshbr.bsky.social
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