Durba Mitra

Durba Mitra is an American historian and professor in the history of social and feminist studies departments at Harvard University. Her work has contributed to the intersection of feminist theory and queer studies through her publications. Mitra's book Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought was published by Princeton University Press. She was chosen for Carol K. Pforzheimer student fellowship as an assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute [2018]. At Harvard, she accepted the first full-time faculty member position for the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Early life

Mitra's mother played an important role in Mitra's life. Her mother was an immigrant from India in the 1980s, who raised Mitra and her sibling as a single mother while working and pursuing a PhD in Statistics. In an interview for Havard Magazine, Mitra highlights her mother's independence and commitment to her cultural identity to her cultural identity, emphasizing how she defied stereotypes by wearing a sari daily in Fargo during the 1980s. Contrary to expectations of familial constraint on South Asian immigrants, Mitra's mother encouraged her to explore diverse possibilities. This led Mitra to view life from a different perspective compared to her peers in North Dakota.

Education and career

As an undergraduate student, Mitra initially pursued a pre-med path, aiming for medical school and a career in global public health. Her passion for the social and historical aspects surrounding medicine rather than its practice which led her to choose Laney Graduate School at Emory University for its interdisciplinary programs and excellent Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program.

In her doctoral research, she delved back into her roots, exploring the history of gender and sexuality in colonial India. She completed her PhD in 2013, also earning her a certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She investigated how perceptions of women's sexuality, particularly notions of deviance, influenced discussions on law, science, and societal reform during British colonial rule.

Mitra then served as an Assistant Professor of History at Fordham University in New York City. Additionally, she's a 2015–16 Mellon Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum. Currently, she's challenging the norms at Harvard University as the first full-time faculty member for the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Work

In Sex and The New Science of Society in Colonial India, she investigates how the figure of the sexually deviant woman, often depicted as the prostitute, was central in the making of a new sociological imagination in eastern India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, according to the University of Michigan.

Her article titled "Testing Chastity, Evidencing Rape: Impact of Medical Jurisprudence on Rape Adjudication in India" was published in the Economic and Political Weekly. Fordham University suggests that the article delves into the influence of forensic medicine on rape cases during colonial and postcolonial India.

Her talk at the end of October 2023 at the Poorvu Gallery at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Third World Feminism and the Crisis of Authoritarianism delves into the dynamic landscape of Third World feminisms during the 1970s and 1980s. It examines how feminists responded to the disillusionment with nationalist movements and the rise of neocolonial governments by reshaping knowledge production. By critiquing postcolonial inequality and rising authoritarianism, they envisioned more equitable futures, marking a significant shift in global feminist thought.

Awards

• 2022: Dean's Competitive Fund Award for Promising Scholarship, Harvard University
• 2021: Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for "distinguished accomplishments in the fields of literature, history, or art," Harvard University
• 2021: Mellon Faculty of Color Working Group Symposium Fellowship
• 2020: Star Family Prize for Excellence in Faculty Advising, Harvard University
• 2020-2021: Shelby Cullom Davis Center Fellowship, Princeton University
• 2019-2020: Asia Center Seminar Series Grant, Harvard University
• 2019: Roslyn Abramson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Harvard University
• 2019: Publication Grant, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
• 2019: FAS Publication Fund Grant, Harvard FAS Division of Social Science
• 2019: Mellon Foundation Schlesinger Library Long 19th Amendment Award for the course "Solidarity" in Spring 2020, Harvard University
• 2018: Asia Center Faculty Research Grant, Harvard University
• 2018-2019: Fellow, Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
• 2018: Course Innovation Fund Award for "Feminist and Queer Histories of Difference," Harvard University Office of Undergraduate Education
• 2018: Tenure Track Manuscript Workshop Grant, Harvard FAS Division of Social Science
• 2015-2016: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania
• 2012-2013: Postdoctoral Fellowship, Department of History and Gender and Women's Studies, Bowdoin College
• 2012-2013: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa (declined)
• 2009-2010: Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, India

Publications

• n.d. The Future That Was: Feminist Thought in the Decolonizing World (under contract with Princeton University Press)
• 2020 Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020)