the dispatch - july 2025 edition
sharing some big personal news, and announcing a special new benefit for paid subscribers!!!
Dear readers,
I hope that this summer has been treating you well so far (and that, wherever you’re located, it’s been less miserably swampy than it’s been here in D.C.)! It’s been a while since I sent one of these updates, but I’m writing today to share some exciting personal news:
At the end of this month, I’ll be moving back to my hometown of Minneapolis to start a PhD program in political science at the University of Minnesota!
I’m planning to specialize in political theory and international relations, with a specific research focus on how the administration of counterinsurgency practices in the British Empire shaped the construction of discourses around ‘terrorism’ and ‘counterterrorism’ that we still operate with today. This is a topic that builds on the research I did for my master’s dissertation in colonial and postcolonial India, and I’m sure that it will end up influencing at least some of the essays that I publish here over the next few years!
If you know me at all, you know that I thrive best in an academic environment, and I’ve been feeling restless to be back in school ever since I completed my master’s degree at LSE nearly two years ago. Of course, D.C. is a city that will always be extremely close to my heart, and saying goodbye to it is definitely bittersweet (stay tuned for a possible essay about this sometime in the coming weeks!), but I truly cannot wait to return to Minnesota to start this next chapter!
Of course, as anyone who knows anything about academia also knows, being a PhD student is not exactly the most lucrative thing a person can do in their 20s—especially in our current moment, with the academy as a whole facing sustained attacks and the humanities and social sciences being hit especially hard. Even in a more affordable city like Minneapolis, and even with the relatively generous contract that the UMN Graduate Labor Union won for PhD workers earlier this year, I’m still looking at about a 50% reduction in my income now that I’m leaving my nonprofit job to become a graduate student.
That’s why I’m appealing to you, my loyal and beloved readers, to please consider becoming a paid subscriber of culture shock today!
Your support will enable me not only to continue writing the essays that I share on this blog, but also to continue producing my biweekly podcast, Return to Bandung—another labor of love that, as much as I enjoy making, does require a truly immense amount of time, energy, and effort. By becoming a paid subscriber, you’ll help ensure that I can continue producing the high-quality, insightful commentary, analysis, and political education that you know and love, even as I juggle the many responsibilities and stresses that come with being back in grad school.
But what’s in it for you? As I wrote about when I first launched paid subscriptions back in September, I really don’t like the idea of paywalling the words that I pour so much of myself into. I have decided to paywall a handful of my much older essays, mostly from the no more mangoes days, but for the most part, my work is and will remain open to everyone. Of course, the decision to keep the vast majority of my work publicly accessible means that there is less of an incentive for readers to become paid subscribers, which I totally understand—especially given that, in today’s Substack economy, there are quite literally thousands of publications jockeying for your $5 a month.
I’ve been thinking hard about what perks I can offer for paid subscribers while still maintaining the accessibility of my writing, and I was honestly at a loss until I attended a recent concert here in D.C., where the opening act had a sign-up sheet at the merch table for people to write down their mailing addresses to receive a physical newsletter from him in the mail. I found this to be thoroughly charming, and after receiving the first newsletter in my mailbox this week, the idea occurred to me that this would be the perfect perk to offer my paid subscribers—after all, who doesn’t love getting mail!
That’s why I’m very excited to announce that starting in August, all paid subscribers of culture shock will receive an ACTUAL PHYSICAL NEWSLETTER in the mail each month, lovingly written by yours truly on my beloved typewriter!
When you sign up as a paid subscriber, the confirmation email you receive will include a link to a Google Form where you can provide your mailing information. (If you’re already a paying subscriber, stay tuned for an email with the Google Form later this week.) The newsletter will come out each month, and first installment will go out in August once I am settled into my new place!
Thank you all SO MUCH for your support of this project and my work—you truly have no idea how much it means to me! I can’t wait to start this exciting new chapter in the Bold North, and bring you all along for the ride with me.
More soon!
Much love and solidarity,
Pranay