The 2026 Acker-Morgen speaker Durba Mitra will present a talk titled, "What If Gathering Together Liberated Us?"

Dr. Mitra is Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. Her scholarship brings together feminist political thought, sexuality studies, and global intellectual history. Mitra's new book is The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (2026 Princeton University Press). It offers a pathbreaking history of women from former colonies in South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond who wrote Third World feminism into being, catalyzing a momentous expansion of knowledge about women, gender, and sexuality that has transformed emancipatory politics across the globe. As part of her research for The Future That Was, Mitra was the curator of a multimedia exhibit, "Solidarity! Transnational Feminisms Then and Now," at the Poorvu Gallery at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. She has several ongoing book projects, including a book on social and political theories of mutual aid, a book on the rise of global feminist environmentalism, and a curation of interviews with global feminist thinkers.

Updated event date: 4–6 p.m. Wednesday, May 13, 2026. Event details coming soon.