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Mahinder Kingra

@mahinder.bsky.social
415 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 · 17/07/2026
A valet at a hotel in Philly burned out the clutch on my Mazda manual last year. A costly mistake I won’t make again …. And as my next car will be an EV (we already have one in the family) there won’t be any more manuals in my life.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
And he was at the Beatles 1964 concert at the Washington Coliseum!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
History Is Made at Night (1937) with Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer (dir. Frank Borzage) was a multi-genre delight, seamlessly moving between romantic comedy, mystery, melodrama, and disaster film.
Film poster for “History Is Made at Night” featuring Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Correct! And there’s no way to further reduce these costs, already cut down to (and. in some cases, into) the bone at many UPs, without a catastrophic impact on quality, author engagement, or impact.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
As library & course adoption sales plummeted over the past two decades, POD undoubtedly enabled academic publishers adapt to the new reality. However, even reducing printing & storage costs by 90% only addresses what was already the least costly part of the publishing process.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
At both of the UPs where I worked, we would routinely print 1200-2000 copies of a pbk we hoped would sell 500 & knew would sell 200, as the economics of offset printing incentivized it. POD (and, later, ebooks) made it possible to print far more realistically, reducing warehouse & pulping costs.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
This week’s #LastFourWatched features two new films and two rewatches, including Jonathan Demme’s best movie (that’s not a concert film). I hadn’t seen “Something Wild” in thirty years and it’s as bracing today as it was released in 1986. #LetterboxdFriday
Film posters for Hokum, Something Wild, The Christophers, and Wake Up Dead Man
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Mark will go for Peter Strickland’s “In Fabric” but I’d suggest “Vertigo.” Although it’s not a fashion-industry film, it has both Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie obsessively styling Kim Novak AND Barbara Bel Geddes’s under-appreciated Midge designing a revolutionary bra inspired by cantilevered bridges.
Film still from Vertigo, with Barbara Bel Geddes and Jimmy Stewart examining a prototype for a new kind of bra
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
The highlight of this week’s #LastFourWatched was a 4K restoration of Satyajit Ray’s “Days and Nights in the Forest” (1970) at the Amherst Cinema. #LetterboxdFriday
Movie posters for Roofman, Days and Nights in the Forest, Host, and Merrily We Roll Along
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
#LetterboxdFriday The theme of this #LastFourWatched is stunning scenery in otherwise disappointing films
Film posters for Sirat, Greenland:Migration, Images, and Lady MacBeth
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The announcement about Hampshire College’s impending closure was sobering. Especially for a parent with a child at Bennington. (Although Bennington should see more applications from Hampshire-minded students next year …)
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I’m a huge fan of Mute Witness, and you’ve reminded me it’s time for a rewatch
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
A light movie-watching week: - family rewatch of my favorite comedy of the past decade - brilliant cringe-comedy - minor (but still-relevant) Hitchcock - poster for 1978’s Bird standing in for the funny, insightful (and unlogable) 2025 DIY documentary “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching”
Film posters for Game Night, The Addams, Lifeboat, and 1978’s Bird
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I’ve only watched one 2026 release twice in theaters—the joyous EPiC—but have given four precious stars to four other ‘26 flicks: The Drama, The Moment, Bone Temple, and Crime 101. A good start to what promised to be a good movie-viewing year!
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
A fairly meh line-up for my #LastFourWatched. The most interesting of these is the Icelandic year-in-the-life The Love That Remains; the oddest was the struggle between earnestness and camp in Nuremberg. #LetterboxdFriday
Photos of film posters for Sisu: Road to Revenge; Field of Dreams; The Love That Remains; and Nuremberg
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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 · 19/03/2026
And to be clear, I never witnessed nor was subjected to any antisemitic, racist, or sexist behavior in my 20-year career at Cornell. This survey is as much a joke as the administration that devised it.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
There’s no establishing question to determine if any such incidents ever took place. And there’s no “I was never subject to nor did I ever witness any antisemitic behavior” selection either. Just “Other”
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
As a recently retired staff member of Cornell, I just received the survey. Why was I not surprised that this survey is completely biased towards finding fault with Cornell. Here’s the first substantive question:
Screen grab of survey question about incidents of antisemitism at Cornell.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
But Aimee Mann only sings about one of them
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
This week, I borrowed a random stack of Blu-rays from our local public library, allowing me to finally catch up with De Palma’s PHANTOM, enjoy the noir nihilism of LAST STOP, and nap twice trying to get through BLACK RAINBOW. Plus the messy BRIDE! in cinema. #LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched Was inspired by the fellas at Blank Check to reevaluate YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE, disappointed by the new TOXIE (but not by Bennington alum Peter Dinklage’s performance) & dazzled by both Ben Wishaw recounting his DAY and Jessie Buckley going BEAST-mode
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
“Do you have a pair of pliers handy?”
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Call Me … on the big screen at Ithaca’s Regal; so immersive that I was surprised it was still winter when I emerged. HBO: made for catching up with movies like Alto Knights (not terrible, just … why?) & Dead of Winter (solid). Thx to Mubi for making the locally lensed My First Film widely available.
Film posters for Call Me By Your Name, The Alto Knights, Dead of Winter, and My First Film
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
With the kiddo home from college, we (re)watched all of the X-Men films, concluding with the much maligned but actually pretty involving New Mutants. La Grazia was enthralling. #LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
Film posters for 10 Things I Hate About You, La Grazia, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The New Mutants
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
In his @cornellupress.bsky.social book, SOVIET SELF-HATRED, Eliot Borenstein tracks this same strategy/impulse in Putin’s Russia, but Russian alt-right trolls see themselves as brave, hypermasculine Orcs and their enemies in the west as conniving, effeminate Elves
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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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Reposted by Mahinder Kingra
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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Reposted by Mahinder Kingra
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
And a feisty Canadian superhero fighting off a rampaging monster from below the 49th parallel does have a satisfying resonance today
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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 · 27/03/2025
I will be forever grateful I had the opportunity to meet Leonard Nimoy and tell him how much his portrayal of Spock inspired me as a half-Indian, half-English immigrant kid growing up in 1970s suburbia. He was, of course, gracious and kind as, I’m sure, my voice broke with emotion.
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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 · 17/02/2025
My favorite in the franchise, too. Baltimore’s own Charles Dutton is terrific as leader of the convicts, the prison setting is inspired (yes, @kermodemovie.bsky.social, even if it’s not the wooden monastery planet that Vincent Ward envisioned 🙄) and it’s driven by Sigourney’s best outing as Ripley.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
This was such a beautiful story. It inspired me to set up monthly donations to the @prisonjournalism.bsky.social. Prisons are only going to become more inhumane in the coming years and these reminders of our shared humanity will be more and more important.
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Mahinder Kingra @mahinder.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Red Eye is nerve-jangling ride with a creepy Cillian Murphy and a resilient Rachel McAdams, directed by Wes Craven, and coming in under 90 minutes. What more do you want from cinema?
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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 · 26/11/2024
Mark will pick Planes, Trains, one of the rare Thanksgiving movies. My choice would be Rogue One: it’s my favorite movie in the Star Wars canon, and it spawned my favorite Star Wars (and among my favorite of all time) TV series, Andor
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