Antara Datta

Historian of South Asia. Mother. Cat person.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@KalathmikaN Kala! Step. Away. From. The. Archives. (Also maybe keep saying this back to me till December?!)

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@IBJIYONGI @notesnthemargin @ChisomoWrites As someone who did a US PhD, the UK person on my committee was alarmed at being contacted by me and was baffled as to why I wanted feedback. In the UK format for a viva (and this student didn’t have one) you have an external and an internal for your viva.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@IBJIYONGI @ChisomoWrites If it’s not her viva then her assessors might be internal faculty. I have been on PhD ‘upgrade’ and annual review panels. It is very very rare (and unfair) to tell a student in their fourth year that their main research question is untenable.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@HEROwens18 @csosjournal @PollyWilkins Hannah! This is brilliant. I read it yesterday and I am 100% going to cite it. It says the things I am saying about European/Chinese/Malayan refugees in India in the 1940s (but more eloquently!)

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@sandiptodg @itihaasnaama It’s an episode of the Netflix series on Bollywood wives. The whole thing was…baffling. The SRCC bit was the most confusing but there is a Charles Dickens/Elif Shafak bit where I laughed so loudly I startled the cat.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@sandiptodg @itihaasnaama Shamefully I know what Rohit is talking about. I fear it may be too low brow for you.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@gupta_diya But for instance when they are sick it’s a lot easier. And you are guaranteed a chunk of sleep at night (except for my beral who wanted to tell me about her life at 5 am this morning…).

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@gupta_diya Erm…12 years later…! I do have more thinking space now that the boys are older. But it’s sometimes easier to solve a 2 year old’s worries than a teenager’s. But I am still perma-tired. And whenever I need writing space everyone wants to tell me about their life.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

This is what academic solidarity and courage looks like.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@Lishanw @udithaumesh India doesn’t allow remote voting. It allows you to register as an NRI voter but you have to be back physically to vote. (At least the last time I checked).

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@udithaumesh India doesn’t either. https://t.co/ZM85weaOuY
You can come back and vote but there is no postal vote etc.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@hebagowayed @sadafjaffer Oh be prepared for them to know random local kids at the playground and for them to call you X’s mom. And that you will save other people’s phone number with a reminder of whose parents they are (because you WILL get kids/parents mixed up).

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@hebagowayed Finally: if something doesn’t feel right don’t second guess yourself. Even the best daycares and schools get things wrong. So trust your instinct.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@hebagowayed Son no 2 cried the first week in daycare but when he got to school, walked in without looking backwards. And I gave him a note too and on day 2 he said, ‘let’s not put bits of paper in my lunch box okay?’

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@laurenbanko @PollyWilkins I had a student call me out for putting the week on Fanon in the week before the holidays. It wasn’t deliberate. But she pointed out no one comes, everyone has written their essay. It did make me stop and think. Designing a syllabus is a profoundly political process.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@laurenbanko @PollyWilkins But also all the people who are saying smugly that teaching should be apolitical. HOW?! What you put in your syllabus is a political choice. Who you leave out. Even when you teach certain things.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@PaperWhispers @_snehakrishnan In a different tweet she says well maybe people will say that her choosing to teach the sonata a ‘canonical’ form in Western classical music is political- haha. Erm. Yes it is. And it is equally political what you see as the canon and you don’t teach.

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@MargotTudor @vmv71241 And before I stop ranting as someone who actually truly loves listening to Western classical music, maybe I can point people to the work of Reena Esmail who has written some truly amazing pieces. This is incredible: https://t.co/Zlu9X4sae3

[Antara Datta @buchu]

@MargotTudor @vmv71241 But it also taps into this belief that some academic disciplines are ‘apolitical’ and what is taught in these classes is just ‘facts’. As if the design of most music theory modules that prioritise a certain form of ‘classical’ music (aka Western) isn’t in itself a choice.