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Mahinder Kingra

@mahinder.bsky.social
414 followers 395 following 98 posts

I recently retired as Cornell University Press's Editorial Director. I remain a National Park obsessive (238 and counting), a cineaste, and aficionado of crime fiction.

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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
“Reading is wonderful, but reading on a full belly is the peak of human happiness.”—Harryboy Boas, from Alexander Baron’s 1963 demimonde London novel, The Lowlife
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
-Rewatching The Secret Agent at the gorgeous Cine Magaly in Barrio Escalante in San Jose, C.R. was a moviegoing highlight of the decade. -Hail Mary on IMAX: Enveloping -The Roses on the plane: Smart, funny, woefully underrated - Spotlight on Netflix: Riveting #LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
I'm very excited to share the cover for a forthcoming @cornellupress.bsky.social book that I sponsored on the International Workers Order (IWO), a 1930-50s immigrant and minority workers' cooperative undone by the Red Scare. The cover art/design is by the inimitable Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl, etc.)
Cover for the forthcoming Cornell University Press/ILR Press book, "From Popular Front to Cold War: The Interracial Left and the International Workers Order, 1930–1954," edited by Elissa Sampson and Robert M. Zecker, with cover art and design by Ben Katchor. The cartoon art depicts a street scene from NYC's Lower East Side, with a boy selling newspapers outside the IWO offices.
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Cornell University Press @cornellupress.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
The margins were never empty. MICROLITERATURES by Jesús R. Velasco uncovers the hidden world of #medieval readers who turned scribbles and side notes into a public, #political act. #Reading will never look the same. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
cornellpress.cornell.edu
Microliteratures by Jesús R. Velasco. translated by Consuelo López-Morillas. foreword by M. Cecilia Gaposchkin and Anne E. Lester | Hardcover | Cornell University Press
Microliteratures is an innovative examination of writings done in the margins of medieval manuscripts and early modern books. Not always as formal as glosses, sometimes feverish and abbreviated, these...
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Cornell University Press @cornellupress.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Before Sleepy Hollow, there was satire, #folklore, and... Dutch? In THE DUTCH WORLD OF WASHINGTON IRVING, Elisabeth Paling Funk uncovers the hidden roots of America's #literary legend. It all starts in 1809 with a prank and a pseudonym. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
cornellpress.cornell.edu
The Dutch World of Washington Irving by Elisabeth Paling Funk | Hardcover | Cornell University Press
The Dutch World of Washington Irving tells an alternative origin story of American literary culture. In December of 1809, before finding fame with "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,".....
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Hulk 181 famously introduced Wolverine in 1974, which is when 8-year-old me bought a copy at the local convenience store. If I’d had the foresight to hermetically seal it then, I could retire today. Ah well …It’s still a fun read, torn cover and all, fifty years later. #Marvel #comicbooks
The cover of The Incredible Hulk, issue 181, with the Green Goliath fighting a yellow-and-blue costumed Wolverine, claws out, while the ape-like Wendigo charges in the background.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
And here’s what awaits attendees when they arrive tomorrow morning for the first day of #Kzoo2025. The first person the bring me a Sweetwater’s donut will get a free ARC of Beni Kedar’s new book, “The Medieval Kingdom of Jerusalem.” (Just kidding ….)
Photo of three tables with “Cornell University Press” tablecloths draped over them, with new and recent books in medieval studies elegantly arranged on them.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Just arrived in Kalamazoo!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
#PublishingOnScreen Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936). Jean Renoir (dir.), Jacques Prévert (scr.)
Film still of a woman telling a group, “He worked for a publisher. Not much of a job.”
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Spending this rainy Saturday cataloguing my comic book collection (mostly ‘70s-90s) with the enthusiastic assistance of my 17-year-old daughter, who is amused by the back cover ads and impressed … OK, alarmed …by my ability to remember obscure characters and plotlines
Photo of four stacks of comic books. Clockwise from top left: Black Panther, X-Men, Marvel Adventures feat. Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Welcome to Ithaca, Museum Association of New York attendees! @cornellupress.bsky.social has a table laden with new and recent books about all aspects of the Empire State - history, nature, biography, public health, even fiction - so stop by to browse, admire, and order (at a 40% discount)
Table in a conference center with books about New York State and a red table cloth proudly identifying the publisher as Cornell University Press
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Or stop by @cornellupress.bsky.social’s stand at #RSA/SAA25 to hold the book and order a copy of the print copy (to complement your Open Access edition) at our too-good-to-be-true conference discount. (By law, I’m not allowed to state how big this discount is.)
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Today I crossed the Charles to attend #RSA/SAA 2025 for the first time and have been amazed by the enthusiasm at the book exhibit for our @cornellupress.bsky.social books like this ….
Book cover for Laura Levine’s “Afterlives of Endor: Witchcraft, Theatricality, and Uncertainty from the Malleus Maleficarum to Shakespeare” featuring a painting by William Blake.
Book cover for Adhaar Noor Desai’s “Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Discomposition” featuring an illustration from a Renaissance writing manual.Book cover for Christopher Lynch’s 
“Machiavelli on War” featuring a Renaissance painting of a battle
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
A welcome flurry of excitement and interest at the #MAA25 book exhibit to start this year’s Medieval Academy. And on the program for Friday, TWO sessions on representative medieval governance inspired by this @cornellupress.bsky.social book by Jacques Dalarun, TO GOVERN IS TO SERVE
Cover for the book TO GOVERN IS TO SERVE: AN ESSAY ON MEDIEVAL DEMOCRACY by Jacques Dalarun, translated by Sean Field. The cover image features a nun washing the feet of another nun as an act of service, while other women religious look on.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
The stage is set for #MAA2025. The book exhibit opens Thursday morning and I’ll be there to stand behind (literally and figuratively) @cornellupress.bsky.social’s latest titles in medieval history and literature. #medievalsky
Three tables in a paneled room draped with Cornell University Press tablecloths and displaying books in medieval studies
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Psssst ... Did you hear that @cornellupress.bsky.social is giving away its #MLA25 display copies to graduate students on Sunday? Visit the Cornell UP stand (#116) between 9:00 and noon!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
@cornellupress.bsky.social is known for many wonderful things: award-winning books, engaged authors, dedicated staff … But really, it’s all about the SOCKS! And you can get your free pair at #MLA2025
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Congratulations to our #MLA2025 award winners: Adhaar Noor Desai, Sean Franzel, and Eric Keenaghan & Rowena Kennedy-Epstein. You can find these books and lots more at the @cornellupress.bsky.social stand in the exhibit hall.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
I’ve been away from the socials for a few months but #MLA2025 seems an especially gentle way to reengage. @cornellupress.bsky.social is here in New Orleans. Booth #116: Laissez les bons livres rouler!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Here’s my weekend hot take: Gladiator II, for all its flaws (the baboons!) and historical inaccuracies, is a more interesting and entertaining movie than Gladiator, which I always found too self-important and self-serious. GII undermines the pieties of the OG, which has clearly annoyed many
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
I’m trying to buy fewer books these days (mostly for reasons of space) so it’s a treat when I HAVE to buy a book, say when I’ve unexpectedly finished one on a trip and find myself at a good airport bookstore and can pick up @jonathancoe.bsky.social’s charming, cine-literate novel, MR. WILDER & ME
Cover of the novel Mr. Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
I’ve been drinking cocktails for a long time but somehow only had my first Perfect Manhattan last month and I’ve made it my seasonal drink for the winter. Perfectly balanced between sweet (vermouth) and astringent (dry vermouth) #cocktailhour
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Grad students attending the @moderniststudies.bsky.social conference, I will be giving away the display copies at the @cornellupress.bsky.social table to starting on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 PM. Been coveting the brand new MODERNISM’S INHUMAN WORLDS by Rasheed Tazudeen? Now’s your chance!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
I really appreciate how @moderniststudies.bsky.social connects its meeting to the city it’s taking place in, and in the spirit of Chicago modernisms, visit @cornellupress.bsky.social to browse Holly Baggett’s account of the Chicago-based #modernist journal, the “Little Review”: MAKING NO COMPROMISE
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 30/10/2024
Excited to be in Chicago next week for the Modernist Studies Association conference to show off new books from @cornellupress.bsky.social and @leuvenup.bsky.social and to meet with scholars to discuss YOUR new book projects. Stop on by!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 23/02/2024
My current “fun read” is @polyalbion’s analysis of the weird (horror/SF/dark heritage) in postwar British film&tv. Was excited to watch The Changes (BBC YA apocalypse series featuring a helpful band a traveling Sikhs - my people!) but it’s currently unavailable on any streaming service!?! 😤
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 13/02/2024
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 08/02/2024
I started my day early by constructing the perfect to-do list. Clearly I should have stopped there and then just taken the rest of the day off
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 03/02/2024
I guess I am driving from Ithaca to Notre Dame for #MedievalAcademy next month? All of the flights from ITH or SYR were really inconvenient, whether to South Bend or Chicago. So I’ll be cueing up an audiobook or two and going off to look for America …
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 29/01/2024
In between episodes of True Detective: Night Country, I watched all of the much-maligned second season of TD (with Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and Vince Vaughn) and people: I do not get all the hate. I found it a compelling, knowing riff on the L.A. noir of Chandler, MacDonald, and Ellroy.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
More #Oscar re-noms: I realize that am virtually alone in finding Robbie Robertson's score for KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON intrusive, but I'd sub in Hildur Gudnadottir's scratchy, spooky score for A HAUNTING IN VENICE, which is as much a part of the film's sound design as it is a soundtrack proper.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
Another #Oscar re-nom: Nicholas Cage for the terrifying DREAM SCENARIO over Bradley Cooper (MAESTRO). I liked Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, but Cage was perversely relatable in a self-contained, lived-in, and tragic performance, while Cooper was exhausting.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
Let the #Oscar re-noms begin: In Supporting Actor, DeNiro didn't need another nom for another (slightly miscast?) DeNiro role. And Ryan Gosling was more (amusing) caricature than acting. Instead: Harris Dickinson (THE IRON CLAW, completely overlooked) & Charles Melton (MAY DECEMBER)
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 22/01/2024
Settling in at the end of a too-short weekend to watch Monsieur Spade on AMC+, with Clive Owen as Hammett’s private eye, living in the south of France in the 1960s. The sharp dialogue could have been written by Hammett and Owen is world-wearier than ever. If #BlueSkyNoir is a thing, get on this!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 29/12/2023
Found at the Westfield (Mass) Salvo for $2, a film noir I haven’t previously seen: 1949’s SCENE OF THE CRIME. Variety called it “Taut, tough and often relentless.” Sold! #FilmNoir #PhysicalMedia
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 25/12/2023
With wintery New England having its cultural moment—Noah Kahan’s anthemic STICK SEASON & Alexander Payne’s bittersweet prep school-at-the-holidays character study THE HOLDOVERS—it’s good being back with the fam in Western Mass for Christmas.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 07/12/2023
BLUE EYE SAMURAI (on Netflix) is an unexpected delight. Set in Edo-period Japan, it's beautifully animated (with gorgeous backgrounds) and surprisingly bloody, and has complex characters and great voice work. I'm three (of eight) episodes in and having to restrain myself from bingeing the rest.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 07/12/2023
Huzzah! Rowena Kennedy-Epstein’s “audacious,” “refreshingly forthright” exploration of Muriel Rukeyser’s archive, UNFINISHED SPIRIT, has been awarded the MLA’s 2023 Matei Calinescu Prize for distinguished scholarship in 20th & 21st century thought & literature.
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Ohio State History Department @osuhistory.bsky.social · 05/12/2023
Congratulations to Professor Theodora Dragostinova on being awarded the 2023 John D. Bell Book Prize from the Bulgarian Studies Association for her book, "The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene" (Cornell, 2021) www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
Only six years late to the party, my favorite viewing experience of 2023 was TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN, 18 hours of the maddest, funniest, scariest, smartest television ever filmed. Runner-up: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. (I contain multitudes, dammit!)
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
At a serious coffee-head cafe in Philly and there’s something really heartening listening to the baristas complain about their jobs and their schedules, rather than rhapsodizing about their craft. Makes this Gen Xer nostalgic. And despite their bitterness, the coffee is … bitter (but in a good way)
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
My profound thanks to the University of Tokyo’s International Publishing Initiative for inviting me to Japan to talk about the future of academic publishing and to meet with UT scholars to discuss their book projects. It’s been an amazing week of conversations and new experiences
The University of Tokyo’s celebrated Akamon, or Red Gate, which dates from 1827.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 05/11/2023
The bleakest opening in detective fiction? "The events I am about to describe are filled with such darkness and sadness, are so cursed and hate-filled, that not a word I write can possibly offer the faintest glimmer of hope or relief."—Seishi Yokomizo's THE DEVIL'S FLUTE MURDERS
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
In the middle of our family’s traditional Halloween Double-Double-Toil-and-Trouble Feature, the same two movies every year …
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 28/10/2023
Watching the Rugby World Cup in a completely packed Irish bar in Chicago was exhilarating. Go Springboks! 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
Status update: Mahinder is really digging the Remedios Varo exhibit at the Art Institute Chicago, Science Fictions
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
I'm in Chicago this weekend for a wedding and so am having to miss #MSA2023 in Brooklyn but my fantastic colleague, India Miraglia, is representing Cornell UP at the book exhibit and we have our virtual booth up and running, too: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/our-msa-2022.... Visit both!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 21/10/2023
In Seneca Falls this morning for a genuinely inspiring event about the creation of the Women’s Rights NHP featuring many of those who fought to realize this vision, including Judy Hart, the force behind it and author of the Cornell UP book telling the park’s improbable, incredible story.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 19/10/2023
Simenon's Maigret novels are by far my favorite "hang-out" books. His eternally mid-century Paris and its concisely sketched characters, settings, and moods would be my permanent holodeck program. I've been rereading them for three decades and always look forward to another visit.
Cover of Georges Simenon's Félicie, the most recent Inspector Maigret novel I read.
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