Dr Kush Patel

In this month's Felt Notes 💌, I talk about the Feminist Solidarities Reading Circle held in the context of Prabhakar Kamble's "Vichitra Natak" at Kochi Biennale. The central gravestone w/ Dr Ambedkar’s clarion call “ANNIHILATION OF CASTE" is what we remain oriented to: buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...

thank you for everything you did for we here and for the library and information science profession, fobazi. you were an incredible friend, thinker, writer, supporter. you’ll be dearly missed 🤍

Two people resting against a decorative handrail of a concrete circular stairwell. Maya on the right is wearing a bright yellow kurta in tie-dye motif with burgundy stole and Kush on the left is dressed in black. The image frame is a brutalist architectural space and courtyard.

"These are the times that I feel grateful to that indefinable something someone."—Maya

In the last few days, I've had the honor to listen to Maya recount and reflect on experiences of queer-trans organizing both locally and in the country; learn; type up notes for the org; hear Indira lay bare the contours of this labour; and just be and dream among some incredible elders and peers. 💜

. . . talked some more about her movements, dreams, and related materials to archive, listened to Joan Nestle speak (and Maya reminiscing about her correspondence with Joan) and ended with snippets of Betty Grumble's performance (with a loving, personal shout-out to @specksofthings.bsky.social). 2/2

Saturday's engagement was a brilliant one-on-one w/ Maya. Our discussions began with Dr. Ambedkar's essays in "From Subjugation To Emancipation" and cont. with buying a copy of Grace Banu's "Basthi" for the center's library. With Minakshi, we also organized her image folder of transition stories 1/2

Yesterday, Preya read selections from Zaverchand Meghani’s “Niranjan” (1936) w/ Maya, Simin, and I following along and adding our annotations. We let ourselves get lost in the text, in queer language and nuance, in acknowledging the stubbornness of time, in desire and its expressions read out loud.

Among Queers and Queens, and with our many sharings and laughs all throughout the night, my heart is full. The effervescence with which Maya holds space for us is inimitable, bringing the words and worlds of "Footprints of a Queer History" to life in more ways than one.

Call for Submissions Issue 28: General Issue The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) seeks scholarly work at the intersection of teaching, learning, and research with technology • Textual and multimedia submissions - interdisciplinary approaches in humanities, sciences, and social sciences welcome • Audio/visual presentations, interviews, dialogues, or conversations; creative/artistic works; manifestos; or other scholarly materials and/or methodologies - work addressing labor and care considerations of teaching and creating projects with digital technology

Have you thought about submitting something to JITP but your idea didn’t quite fit with our themed issues? Submit to our **GENERAL ISSUE** by December 15th and show us how you think about the intersection of teaching, learning, and research with technology. See you in our inbox!

Looking forward to tonight's film screening at BIC and onward to welcoming Susan Potter to the city as we get ready to facilitate a queer archival reading workshop at the national law school later this week. This month's felt notes will be these quieter threadings on archives and historical justice.

Such heartening news and well-deserved promotion and title, Kathleen!

Such wonderful news and many congratulations on the book, Amy! I look forward to reading it.

Marking the solstice by reviewing an archive's material inventory; furthering on-ground relations in support of fundraising; giving form to a related research collaboratory; adding to graduate thesis advising notes; and making space for new writing on queer- and trans-feminist DH scholarship.

Thanks, Emily—and much work to continue.

What does it mean for the cataloging process to be in formation, particularly as it involves and is co-created with trans folx? Today’s meeting with my namesake, a doctoral researcher currently housed at the archive, was all things pertinent to this question and more.

I just joined your mailing list and I look forward to being in community and to future possibilities.

And the week ends w/ my first fuller meeting w/ other members of the queer archive advisory group, learning about multi-site informations; thinking about local archival representation and labour; and reflecting w/ Pawan about what memory work might entail when lives are increasingly made fragile.

An India Foundation for the Arts archival tour found a more intimate home + iteration in the convo w/ Pawan that followed. The worlds of queer-trans archiving may feel distinct from these infrastructures, given our q’s + precarities, but also comparable considering another set of q’s + urgencies.

Looking forward to meeting Pawan this afternoon. We met two years ago in Kolkata at the screening of “A Home for My Heart,” a documentary on Sudeb Suvana’s life. And whilst Pawan’s tremendous work leading Varta remains an important connection, I remain equally excited our shared worlds with QAMRA.

Embracing all heightened engagements with a local queer-trans archive as we collectively and uniquely continue to build and support it in our varied capacities. That these entanglements have their own specificities make the question of how and why we came to do this work equally alive and brilliant.

Postscript ID: A flyer of our second workshop on queer-trans archival relations that Susan Potter and I developed and led at the University of Sydney. To listen to,...

A postscript on orienting politics in this month’s Felt Notes 💌 (part II): buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...

Movements ID: To Tash [center], my sincerest thanks for extending such a warm welcome to New Delhi, first by hosting me at the YP Foundation and subsequently by...

In this month’s Felt Notes 💌, I share my reflections on being in community at the Ashoka CWC annual conference on “A Song Called Teaching,” as well as the experience of producing an off-campus DH pop-up lab to mark the latest transdisciplinary research cycle at SMI. buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...

Movements ID: To Tash [center], my sincerest thanks for extending such a warm welcome to New Delhi, first by hosting me at the YP Foundation and subsequently by...

In this month’s Felt Notes 💌, I share my reflections on being in community at the Ashoka CWC annual conference on “A Song Called Teaching,” as well as the experience of producing an off-campus DH pop-up lab to mark the latest transdisciplinary research cycle at SMI. buttondown.com/JustFuturesC...

Imagine how miserable it must be to experience the world without wonder and delight. Everyone in power right now: no curiosity, no kindness — just power and “prestige” and profit. So pathetic. Dangerous and destructively consequential, of course, but also tragic. Protect the weird and wonderful.

An announcement poster for admissions to the MA Contemporary Art Practice program at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, India, involving fine art, text and performance, public art, digital humanities, and moving image art. The image on the poster, courtesy of the artists, is entitled और ढालकी கட்டுக்கதைகள்" (aur dhalki kattukadhaigal), interlude exhibit by anu, eyeshaan, and Harini, displayed at the open house Interpretations in December 2024.

Over two years, students of MA CAP work across a range of practices in fine arts (including public art), performance, moving image art, and digital humanities to further studies in the historical, cultural, and political contexts of South Asia and its connections with the rest of the world.

An announcement poster for admissions to the MA Contemporary Art Practice program at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, India, involving fine art, text and performance, public art, digital humanities, and moving image art. The image on the poster is that of an installation of 36 cloth panels of A5 size with charcoal sketches of human animal bonds in Uttarakhand by Vaishali. The project is an outcome of the MA CAP transdisciplinary research unit on art, media, and community led by Aastha Chauhan from September to November 2024.

Admissions to the MA Contemporary Art Practice program at Srishti Manipal are ongoing and would interest folx keen on making, theorizing, and researching art and cultural production in society with and beyond GLAM careers. Learn more: srishtimanipalinstitute.in/academics-ov...

I'll be dedicating today's event to Joshua Clover, who gave us critical karaoke, a form of research writing w/ music that also amplified our work this sem. Equally, a shout-out to Karen Tongson for orchestrating a brilliant critical karaoke at HISS 25. My gratitude for both: in memory, in community.

An A4 size poster titled Queer- and Trans-Feminist DH and Critical Making, announcing postgraduate research and public engagement session scheduled for Saturday, May 3, 2025, from 2:00-4:00 pm on the first floor of Sandhya PG Mess in Yelahanka New Town, Bengaluru. The event marks the culmination of a five-week research intensive at the Just Futures Co-lab and doubles up as a lab pop-up in the larger neighborhood of Srishti Manipal campus. The graphic images on the poster resemble Twine passages and each box or passage is titled Critical Karaoke, Interactive Hypertext Prototypes, and DH Index respectively. The title text and sub-text are in bright pink and the schedule information is in black. The bottom text acknowledges lab members in lower-case alphabetical order of anu, anwesha, eyeshaan, kush, ruhani, shae. The poster details are set against a graph paper background in light blue.

This Saturday (May 3), students and I will conclude our five-week transdisciplinary research project intensive w/ an off-campus Co-lab pop-up and public engagement, involving a critical karaoke performance; a table-top play of individual interactive hypertexts; and a DH index reading and discussion!

Such brilliant news! Congratulations!