iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The protests at the ‘section of two circulations—the long revolutionary internationalism of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist emancipatory praxis & the security internationalism of counter-insurgency doctrines—confirmed that internationalism is never politically neutral www.jamhoor.org/read/hum-dek...

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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 · 03/08/2026

History, from the libelles of the 1770s to the placards of Jantar Mantar, offers a consistent lesson: power that insists on being taken seriously rarely survives being laughed at for long but it survives the moment its opponents decide laughter was beneath them after all m.thewire.in/article/poli...

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

He cites the poems of Ahmad Faraz, invokes figures from Raja Rammohan Roy to Jotiba Phule. . .Irfan is not an exception. It's just that we see manual workers through the essentialist lens of labour, labouring identity (and not) as poets, writers of their struggles, indianexpress.com/article/opin...

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Every barricade produced another act of solidarity. Ppl walked long distances, opened their homes, arranged lifts, shared food-water, cared for the injured. . .our 23-day hunger strike turned humiliation into collective defiance. (We) changed the language of protest indianexpress.com/article/opin...

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The need to move beyond a democratic consciousness and an economic (trade-union) consciousness . . . to understand that the interests of the corporate class and the political-bureaucratic elite allied with it are incompatible with the interests of most students, countercurrents.org/2026/07/stud...

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The defining images—a woman standing in front of a police bus, ppl escaping a lathi charge thanking the police for the cardio, a youngster opening a locked van to let comrades escape, students dancing under water cannons, boy wishing Modi a happy Diwali as teargas shells explode behind [Sarayu Pani]

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

In contrast to the Mandal agitations, the students are channeling resentment towards the state and not at other students. . .whether this politics can override the pull of inherited identity, a protest on these terms can ingrain this thinking into political consciousness, thewire.in/rights/youth...

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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 · 08/07/2026

Re-experiencing the Gallery of NSW’s Art After Hours has been nothing short of magical—and quite like last year’s visit with the entire HISS contingent, this program, too, had equal bits of serendipity and intentionality to make the evening extra special.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

“Or”, in Toby Fitch's words, "isn’t a stable word. It’s a noun (gold), an adjective (golden), and a conjunction (now), and its English homonym is a conjunction that links alternatives, giving the 'otherwise' equal billing." This review is fantastic. overland.org.au/2026/06/tran... Diving in.

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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 · 05/07/2026

Sad to learn via the committee about last week’s queerphobic attack at the venue. A big yes to defiance in community—and an equally resounding yes to being in solidarity both transnational and local as we move ahead.

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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 · 16/06/2026

Meeting Arii and Debina at Sappho for Equality was a highlight. We talked about all things archival, local, community-centered, and technological in the context of Dalil and The Just Archives Collaboratory. And then I spent the afternoon amidst the charcoal art pop-up immersive at Porshi. 💜

A view of Porshi cafe art pop-up adorning the cafe’s bright red walls and a column on the left. The display comprises drawings in charcoal on white paper and painted text and queer slogans in white against the red background of the two walls and a column and in black against the white background of the beam on top.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Yesterday, the Victoria Gardens opened up for me—and how! The public act, the nighttime walk, and the train ride home made me relive the experiences of a city that is queer af! And today’s reading hour at Seagull Books extended the feel of some of that defiance in print.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

বাঙালিয়ে আমরা জেন্ডার খুঁজি না — Meeting Sudipa in Kolkata and at yesterday’s Varta gathering was a highlight. Her care-filled welcome, her banter, and her attention to detail made the otherwise compact and busy space at once intimate and expansive in feel and form.

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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

Thank you @alanyliu.bsky.social, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and @jamessmithies.bsky.social for your scholarly-editorial brilliance! This volume is special to us—and Alan, your alt-text for the book cover is an expert class in itself, in showing how and why alt-texts matter.

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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 · 08/06/2026

This Thurs, Susan Potter (@specksofthings.bsky.social) and I are hosting an online office hour / drop-in session to think w/ folx interested in the Dialogue Series CFP and anyone keen to learn about The Just Archives Collaboratory on @kcommons.bsky.social. Join us: 2:30 pm AEST // 10 am IST #IAW2026

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

“Our gratitude maybe short of the gift you gave us, of discussions on creative processes, triggering reflections that we rarely allow ourselves. On June 1st, as we stacked the chairs one on top of the other, we revisited in our mind the time of rekindling bonds”—Maya & Indira, in love & solidarity

A bamboo grove and brick compound wall lit warmly from the top. A six colour Pride rainbow flag and a seven colour Lesbian Pride flag flank the sides of a low stage on which Maya Sharma, wearing a red shirt, and Indira Pathak, wearing a Blue shirt, are standing and being in conversation with Nau Foundation director as part of the evening’s exhibition closing. People are seated in front on white chairs.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

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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 · 29/05/2026

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Here is Vikalp’s posting about tomorrow’s pop-up. In its preparation today, we discussed how to set up the hypertexts, a video, lab resources, and an endless indexical scroll of citations in print such that the visitors’ access points can be plural and generative. www.instagram.com/p/DY2UxXYAgw...

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I’m getting ready for the exhibition and lab pop-up. As artists, academics, and organizers, we’ve been working on this program since December 2025, so to experience it in community would be special—and equally to see how folx engage with queer- and trans-feminist DH pedagogy work in this setting.

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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 · 08/05/2026

Pardon the self-plug: the chapter “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” from Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities could be considered: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791607...

upress.umn.edu

Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities

How digital humanities can shape and be shaped by the infrastructures that sustain our worldCritical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities reimagines...

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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 · 22/04/2026

Brilliant news, Flo! Many congratulations.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I added it in small print as part of the unit's anti-plagiarism policy to start w/ and then when we co-wrote our space and community guidelines, we also felt that this refusal could be its own resource that we can co-build and situate across our experiences and ambitions—and as a feminist practice.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

We still hold this statement in lab community, keeping it alive and making additions to it, especially as these students work on their final capstone/dissertation projects this term and I prepare to engage another group in/for the next academic year.

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Dr Kush Patel @kshpatel.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Last sem, I taught a five-week-long MA intensive on research writing where students and I also co-developed a GenAI refusal statement as part of anti-plagiarism policy; MA CAP research-creation framework; and our own DH lab vision, s/citing how writing comes to us as a form of thinking and being.

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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

Check out the full CFP w/ possible topics including, but not limited to, feminist, queer, and trans making practices in and beyond the classroom and making not as a pivot to the so-called age of AI but one as modeling an epistemic view and critique of “the machine.” Submission deadline: June 5, 2026

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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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