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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Found this last week at my local library and it's just delightful. Can confirm both my 7yo child and my 73yo mother enjoyed reading it. #Shakespeare

A picture book with a dark blue-green cover and iridescent text reading “Allthe world’s your stage: Shakespeare for Today,” by Farah Karin-Cooper. Illustrations from left to right: (1) a young man and woman wearing masks and dancing (Romeo & Juliet); a dark-skinned young man in Renaissance clothing holding a skull (Hamlet); a man with the head of a donkey (Midsummer Night’s Dream).

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

It never fully sinks in until you're holding the copy in your hands... Thank you to @oldfortunatus.bsky.social for trusting me with the introduction! I’m quite proud of how it turned out. 😄🍾📖 #Shakespeare #EarlyModern

Paperback copy of the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 sitting on a bookcase. Cover has a red heraldic rose, an unhappy-looking king, and possible witch, and a soldier on horseback, all surrounded by a wash of bloody red.

Back cover of a paperback edition od the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Henry VI, Part 2.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

I doubt it will feel real until I'm holding it, but this is for my teenaged self, who used these editions in high school and would never have dreamed she'd write the introduction to one. #Shakespeare #HenryVI

Cover for the New Oxford Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II. General editor Emma Smith. Text edited by Rory Loughnane. Introduction by Kavita Mudan Finn. Image on the right is a composite of a red heraldic rose, a stylized version of the official royal portrait of King Henry VI of England, a man wielding a sword on a rearing horse with a white rose in the background, and a man and a woman appearing to practice witchcraft.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

I want to thank my sister for keeping me diligently updated on the nail-biting election for Cat Mayor of the Somerville Bike Path.

Political sign in red/white/blue with a photo of a majestic grey striped cat. Text reads: Somerville, Ardently I admire and lolve you. Vote for Mr. Darcy.

Series of 6 political yard signs all for different cats. Left to right. Blue sign for Murphy, whose platform includes "boxes, not bureaucracy, longer shoelaces, compulsory naps, and chicken subsidies,"; lighter blue sign for adorable black kitten Ernie, "Feel the Ern"; next is Milo, a fashionably bespectacled striped cat, who promises "crunchies in every dish"; next we have Warrior Princess, laser pointing the way to the future; and Jellyqueen, who has skipped mayor and is running instead for queen, pointing out that "I don't believe in democracy." Finally, our one canine candidate, whose name I cannot read, but who is all ears.

Three political signs. Left to right. First, Mela, a most fancy black and white cat wearing an Uncle Sam hat. Then, a partly visible sign for Miles Vorcatsigan, a forceful-looking gentleman with grey and white stripes and a fine white front; and lastly, Midnight, a black cat costumed as Superman because superheroes wear underpants on the outside.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

So, this just got a whole lot more real...☠️⚔️🌹

Title page for Oxford World's Classics edition of William Shakespeare's Henry the Sixth Part Two with an introduction by Kavita Mudan Finn, text edited by Rory Loughnane

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Inaugurating our new--and hopefully far less breakable--cocktail glasses with a Negroni.

A stemless cocktail glass filled with red liquid sits on a brown leather coaster on top of a cluttered desk. In the background are wires and Ruby Lal's biography of Nur Jahan.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

This. There are so many better insults. The man dumped a rotting bear carcass in the most visited public park in the country. He took his grandchildren swimming in sewage water. Also he is the definition of a nepo baby who has failed upward his whole life. Or, rather more poetically, this:

A blond, bearded man wearing elaborate armor stands in a body of water. His expression is both fearful and guilty. He is Théoden, king of Rohan, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Text reads "You are a lesser son of greater sires."

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Today, in "things I wish I remembered the context for":

Photograph of a large alligator with its mouth open. Text superimposed: Lydgator. Can I interest you in some Chaucerian fanfic?

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

“How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world.”

A sad-looking brown and white dog (basset hound) in a crate, wearing a surgical collar.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

“We do not recognize the validity of your time change. We require dinner.”

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 08/09/2024

“Thou hast made the very earth my hell.”

Tiny black and white shih tzu, wearing a cone and pointedly not looking at the viewer.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 08/09/2024

“O villain, villain, smiling damnèd villain!”

Black and white shih tzu in a cone, glaring murderously at the viewer.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 07/09/2024

I had the pleasure of reading @drdadabhoy.bsky.social’s fantastic book before publication and am looking forward to rereading it with my #RB4R colleagues.

Paperback book, white cover with green geometric pattern. Shakespeare Through Islamic Worlds by Ambereen Dadabhoy.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 29/05/2024

Sometimes a book chapter is about advancing the field or producing groundbreaking scholarship. And sometimes it's about hiding as many silly jokes in your footnotes as possible.

Screenshot of a Word document. Main text: Rous and André were only the first of many to take a stab at the late king. Footnote: Literarily speaking. If we're being technical, the first ones were Lord Stanley's soldiers on Bosworth Field.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/11/2023

She’s 7 but you’d never guess to look at her.

A tiny black and white Shih Tzu napping on a bed, all curled up.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 04/10/2023

...but also nobody reads my academic work, so I'm still not 100% sure it counts...

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

Somewhere, 20yo me is horrified at my willingness to make appointments at 8:30am. I still am not a morning person and still do not understand morning people; I am a merely a night person with school-aged children.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 20/12/2021

All the above photos are older. This is from last holiday season, when Nigel photobombed my attempt to get a card photo of my two daughters. By then, he was mostly blind, mostly deaf, and mostly senile. But he was still our sweet little old man, and we will miss him very much.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 20/12/2021

He always had a somewhat contentious relationship with our basset hound Lucy, who is a year younger and a force of personality. She hasn't noticed yet that he's gone. I expect we will hear about it when she does.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 20/12/2021

Nigel was 16 years old. We adopted him in 2009 through my MIL, whose coworker couldn't afford to keep him. He lived with us for almost 13 years. He was our sweet, reliable, little old man (see photos: he always looked old). When our kids were born, he was the dog nanny.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 20/12/2021

We had to say goodbye to our oldest dog, Nigel, today. We promised ourselves we would make the call before he started having bad days. He had a neurological event this morning and, in consultation with the vet, we determined it was time.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 06/11/2021

This just arrived for me at my local library. So looking forward to reading it.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 02/10/2021

It's the weekend and I'm avoiding work.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 16/09/2021

The new @Arthuriana_Jrnl (31.2) has dropped, so I can finally show off my article, on my favourite of King Arthur's knights, Sir Palomydes. So thrilled to be in this issue alongside the brilliant @Nahir_Otano, @wanchuankao, Matthew Vernon, Amelia Rutledge, and Geraldine Heng!

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 19/08/2021

Puns in the wild, West Village edition.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 02/06/2021

Since all the cool kids are doing it, here is the @SAAupdates seminar that I am co-convening with @mccqua and Emily Griffiths Jones (whose handle I cannot recall atm). Come talk about early modern fanfic! (Medieval too; we'll allow it.) #fanstudies

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 01/05/2021

Got vaccine #2 earlier today. It was a tough call on which mask to go with, but I like my choice.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 27/02/2021

I haven’t made cocktail cherries for the past couple of years and the remainder of the ones from 2017 were starting to look, um, questionable. So I caved and bought a jar of Griottines, and it is a constant act of willpower not to eat them out of the jar. Tonight: Vieux Carré.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 06/02/2021

Tonight’s drink, the Eiffel Sour. Credit to Le Mistral in Houston, which I just learned has sadly closed due to COVID. 😢 As to what I’m planning to work on tonight, the book behind the drink is the clue.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 30/01/2021

I don’t know which of my children was responsible for this, but I am a proud parent. #bassethoundlife

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

I’m going to say it and daughter agrees. The dress looks so much better in blue. It just does. Merryweather is correct and Flora is wrong. Fight me.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

The awakening scene is beautifully done, but it occurs to me that Aurora has literally not spoken a word since leaving the woodcutter’s cottage halfway through the movie. Watching this movie as a parent is...sigh.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

Totally forgot that Maleficent calls on “all the powers of Hell” when she transforms into a dragon. Curious to see if 4yo pulls that out on the playground. I must applaud Maleficent’s commitment to avenging a missed party invitation. You can’t say she doesn’t give it her all.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

Peter Jackson totally stole from this scene for the Minas Morghul sequence in The Return of the King. Just saying.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

It’s interesting that the ‘good’ fairy magic is also rendered in green tones, but a more blueish-green than Maleficent’s citrine/lime/yellowish magic.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

(Also the bit where Maleficent’s shadow and eyes appear in the fireplace was delightfully scary to me as a child.)

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

I love this whole sequence where the fairies take Aurora to the palace and Maleficent finds her. It’s so creepy and the music is perfect and the lighting and I just love it so much.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

The entire conversation between King Hubert and Prince Philip makes so much more sense when you realize Hubert is 3.5 sheets to the wind. Also "Now, father, you're living in the past. This is the fourteenth century!" will never not make me giggle.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

That is a really nice bed for an abandoned cottage in the woods.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

Update: Cookbook does not have illuminated borders. But it does have an illuminated initial.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

Daughter is palpably delighted by Merryweather’s outrage at how bad Flora’s dress is. But this does beg the question of who made everything ELSE that Aurora has worn over the years?

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

Ha, even the book of sewing patterns has illuminated borders! I’ll have to see if the cookbook also does.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 15/09/2020

In Maleficent’s vision of Aurora’s death, she looks like a recumbent effigy. Also, she has predicted Aurora’s exact outfit when the curse strikes her. Dear Maleficent, why are you wasting your talents on petty social nonsense? You are better than this.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 11/09/2020

OK, Twitter, hope I don't regret this. 😬

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 16/06/2020

The best part of summer in my neck of the (literal) woods.

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Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn @kvmfinn.bsky.social · 23/11/2019

The book containing my newest chapter arrived! In which I delve into the inspirations for, parallels to, and psychological depths of Cersei Lannister. Also you can get it for $10 at @Palgrave_ so hie thee hence! #GameofThrones #MedievalTwitter

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