Durba Mitra
@durba.bsky.social
Author of Indian Sex Life (Princeton University Press, 2020) &
The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, 2026). love a dance party.
The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (Princeton University Press, 2026). love a dance party.
Pinned
The Future That Was
How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present
press.princeton.edu
The Introduction, “What is the Future We Yearn For?,” to my book, *The Future That Was*, is now live and freely available to all on the book’s @princetonupress.bsky.social website
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Was invited to contribute to the Quarter Mark on significant moments of the first 25 years of this century. With thanks to DB and Rinaldo Walcott for reading and thinking with me.
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...
Opinion: The murder that led to an uprising around the world
The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, proved, again, there are people to whom seemingly anything can be done with impunity
www.theglobeandmail.com
December 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read 💜
December 27, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read 💜
Reposted by Durba Mitra
you should read this
👇🏾
👇🏾
The Introduction, “What is the Future We Yearn For?,” to my book, *The Future That Was*, is now live and freely available to all on the book’s @princetonupress.bsky.social website
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
The Future That Was
How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present
press.princeton.edu
December 27, 2025 at 6:51 PM
you should read this
👇🏾
👇🏾
talented international scholars were RECRUITED to migrate from afar and join US universities, hospitals, & tech companies and worked in often impossible, 100hr work week, inhumane conditions in labs, hospitals, companies etc, all forgotten now by clownish xenophobics in power
I see this on the right - the idea that the existence of foreign academic staff and faculty are evidence of discrimination against natives. It's not discrimination, its selection: academia is a global marketplace, the US is the biggest center of that market. So yes, some foreign talent will win.
Striking nativist editorializing by the federal judge who just upheld the $100,000 tax on high-skill immigrants.
She opines that it’s “troubling” that universities hire talent from abroad at all, instead of only native grads.
Then admits (!) that opinion is irrelevant (So why write it? Venting?)
She opines that it’s “troubling” that universities hire talent from abroad at all, instead of only native grads.
Then admits (!) that opinion is irrelevant (So why write it? Venting?)
December 27, 2025 at 5:58 PM
talented international scholars were RECRUITED to migrate from afar and join US universities, hospitals, & tech companies and worked in often impossible, 100hr work week, inhumane conditions in labs, hospitals, companies etc, all forgotten now by clownish xenophobics in power
My book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism, will be out March 17, 2026
It is now available for pre-order from @princetonupress.bsky.social and other online booksellers! cart.press.princeton.edu/checkout/car...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
It is now available for pre-order from @princetonupress.bsky.social and other online booksellers! cart.press.princeton.edu/checkout/car...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
December 27, 2025 at 5:19 PM
My book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism, will be out March 17, 2026
It is now available for pre-order from @princetonupress.bsky.social and other online booksellers! cart.press.princeton.edu/checkout/car...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
It is now available for pre-order from @princetonupress.bsky.social and other online booksellers! cart.press.princeton.edu/checkout/car...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Finally had a chance to read this Incredible piece by @gregsargent.bsky.social that documents Miller’s attempt to undo and reverse the 1965 immigration settlement and reveals how central this effort is to the administration’s reactionary aim to take down the New Deal and civil rights orders.
December 27, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Finally had a chance to read this Incredible piece by @gregsargent.bsky.social that documents Miller’s attempt to undo and reverse the 1965 immigration settlement and reveals how central this effort is to the administration’s reactionary aim to take down the New Deal and civil rights orders.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
In less than a week, I will be sworn in as the next mayor of New York City. It was only possible because of the more than 100,000 people who volunteered on our campaign. Here’s a story about one of them, my mother.
December 26, 2025 at 6:46 PM
In less than a week, I will be sworn in as the next mayor of New York City. It was only possible because of the more than 100,000 people who volunteered on our campaign. Here’s a story about one of them, my mother.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
"A group including Big Tech players and major universities fought against the RAISE Act, which got a last-minute rewrite"
New York’s landmark AI safety bill was defanged — and universities were part of the push against it
A group including Big Tech players and major universities fought against the RAISE Act, which got a last-minute rewrite.
www.theverge.com
December 24, 2025 at 5:08 PM
"A group including Big Tech players and major universities fought against the RAISE Act, which got a last-minute rewrite"
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.
December 23, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.
I have the opportunity to review a national PhD researcher grant competition. There are so many *extraordinary* researchers studying women, queer & trans life, gendered power, in new and exciting ways.
These ideas continue to thrive in defiance of authoritarian attempts to disappear knowledge.
These ideas continue to thrive in defiance of authoritarian attempts to disappear knowledge.
December 23, 2025 at 4:18 PM
I have the opportunity to review a national PhD researcher grant competition. There are so many *extraordinary* researchers studying women, queer & trans life, gendered power, in new and exciting ways.
These ideas continue to thrive in defiance of authoritarian attempts to disappear knowledge.
These ideas continue to thrive in defiance of authoritarian attempts to disappear knowledge.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
The Introduction, “What is the Future We Yearn For?,” to my book, *The Future That Was*, is now live and freely available to all on the book’s @princetonupress.bsky.social website
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
The Future That Was
How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present
press.princeton.edu
December 3, 2025 at 1:12 AM
The Introduction, “What is the Future We Yearn For?,” to my book, *The Future That Was*, is now live and freely available to all on the book’s @princetonupress.bsky.social website
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
Reposted by Durba Mitra
It’s the entire point. There’s no plan to make this meaningful for students. No plan to use it administratively. Its design and implementation signals its only real intent. It’s best and easiest use case is for systematic harassment and to scare faculty into complying in advance.
We know the students don’t read the syllabuses. So who will? Right-wing activists looking for excuses to hound profs.
December 20, 2025 at 12:47 PM
It’s the entire point. There’s no plan to make this meaningful for students. No plan to use it administratively. Its design and implementation signals its only real intent. It’s best and easiest use case is for systematic harassment and to scare faculty into complying in advance.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
I’m at HHS headquarters where RFK Jr. is announcing new restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors by spouting pseudoscience and political misinformation that goes against every major medical association.
December 18, 2025 at 4:21 PM
I’m at HHS headquarters where RFK Jr. is announcing new restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors by spouting pseudoscience and political misinformation that goes against every major medical association.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Today, the Trump administration announced plans to restrict access to gender-affirming health care through the federal rulemaking process. 🧵
December 18, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Today, the Trump administration announced plans to restrict access to gender-affirming health care through the federal rulemaking process. 🧵
This is the clearest articulation of what is happening to entire domains of research for no reason except anti-intellectualism:
“It took us a long time to create the institution and put a lot of work into that, but it's vastly, vastly easier to destroy an institution than to create it,” Marks said
“It took us a long time to create the institution and put a lot of work into that, but it's vastly, vastly easier to destroy an institution than to create it,” Marks said
December 18, 2025 at 2:54 AM
This is the clearest articulation of what is happening to entire domains of research for no reason except anti-intellectualism:
“It took us a long time to create the institution and put a lot of work into that, but it's vastly, vastly easier to destroy an institution than to create it,” Marks said
“It took us a long time to create the institution and put a lot of work into that, but it's vastly, vastly easier to destroy an institution than to create it,” Marks said
Reposted by Durba Mitra
NEW: Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food.
Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.
www.propublica.org
December 17, 2025 at 12:00 PM
NEW: Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food.
Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Delighted that the *Radical History Review* 153 (Oct 2025) "Radical Histories of Decolonization*, I co-edited with Marissa Moorman, Jessica Namakkal, and Golnar Nikpour is now up! Cover features Kiluanji Kia Henda's “A Descoberta” (2006)" read.dukeupress.edu/radical-hist... cc @jecca.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Delighted that the *Radical History Review* 153 (Oct 2025) "Radical Histories of Decolonization*, I co-edited with Marissa Moorman, Jessica Namakkal, and Golnar Nikpour is now up! Cover features Kiluanji Kia Henda's “A Descoberta” (2006)" read.dukeupress.edu/radical-hist... cc @jecca.bsky.social
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Rob Reiner (1947–2025)
December 15, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Rob Reiner (1947–2025)
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.
Federal agents use chemical irritant on crowd in Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis amid Trump crackdown
Federal agents have used chemical irritant to disperse a crowd in a heavily Somali neighborhood in Minneapolis. This happened Tuesday during a identification checks amid the Trump administration's cra...
www.mprnews.org
December 14, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.
my fave is when the humanists look for two seconds at austerity budgets & using basic common sense gesture wildly that ideological attacks on and mass cuts of the humanities & social sciences are actually just the financial mismanagement of bloviating men, admin bloat, and real estate idiocy
December 14, 2025 at 4:12 PM
my fave is when the humanists look for two seconds at austerity budgets & using basic common sense gesture wildly that ideological attacks on and mass cuts of the humanities & social sciences are actually just the financial mismanagement of bloviating men, admin bloat, and real estate idiocy
Reposted by Durba Mitra
Kudos to the Brown University students who are posting continuous live updates, spaced just minutes apart, on the campus shooting. A lot of grace and professionalism under immense pressure.
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
Live updates: Two deceased in active shooter incident at Brown University
Serving the Brown University community since 1891
www.browndailyherald.com
December 14, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Kudos to the Brown University students who are posting continuous live updates, spaced just minutes apart, on the campus shooting. A lot of grace and professionalism under immense pressure.
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Durba Mitra
It’s been two weeks since ICE took Yuanxin Zheng from his father. He is six years old. He’s still not home. This has to end.
December 10, 2025 at 10:32 PM
It’s been two weeks since ICE took Yuanxin Zheng from his father. He is six years old. He’s still not home. This has to end.
Reposted by Durba Mitra
supreme court to decide whether part of constitution is part of constitution
The Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to uphold the longstanding principle that grants citizenship to the children of non-citizens born in the U.S., following a legal challenge by the Trump administration. n.pr/48E1oko
Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments in birthright citizenship challenge
The Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to uphold the longstanding principle that grants citizenship to the children of non-citizens born in the U.S., following a legal challenge by the Trump administration.
n.pr
December 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
supreme court to decide whether part of constitution is part of constitution