Mushahid Hussain is an academic and a researcher trained in historical sociology and political economy, with a PhD in Development Sociology from Cornell University, and master’s degrees in sociology and economics from Binghamton University and Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), respectively. His research examines the relationship between past and contemporary dynamics of capitalist development and social change in Bangladesh and the Global South more broadly. Hussain’s writings have investigated themes in histories of decolonization, globalization, and international development, labor precarity and social movements, postcolonial nationalisms, social scientific knowledge production and state-making, social theory, and urban political ecology. Hussain’s courses build on his substantive research as well as methodological interests in developing a comparative, historical, and interdisciplinary lens on urban social life. He has taught introductory and advanced courses in sociology, development studies, theory, and research methods. In the classroom, Hussain encourages open dialogue, student participation, and well-informed thinking.

Selected Publications:

• Hussain, M. (2025). Through the Prism of Community Development: Decolonization and the Cold War Politics of Agrarian Modernization in East Pakistan. Social Science History, 49(20), Special Issue on ‘What is the Cold War?’
  
• Hussain, M (2021). Is a Left-wing Nationalism Possible in Bangladesh?Jamhoor: Special Issue on State and Border-making in South Asia, 2021.
• Hussain, M. (2019). Wither the “Development Contract”? Historical Conjunctures in Naomi Hossain’s ‘The Aid Lab: Understanding Bangladesh's Unexpected Success.’ Third World Quarterly, 40(6), 1127-1144.
• Hussain, M. (2018). Contesting, (Re)producing or Surviving Precarity? Debates on Precarious Work and Informal Labor Re-examined. International Critical Thought, 8(1), 105-126.
• Hussain, M. (2018). Perils and Prospects of the Modern University. African and Asian Contexts in a World-Historical Perspective. In D. Bhattacharya (Ed.) The Idea of the University: Histories and Contexts. London: Routledge.
• Hussain, M. (2017). (Translated by Patricia García Espín). Bajo los escombros: Trabajadores, marcas y la política de la representación en la industria textil mundial después de Rana Plaza, Laberinto, 48(1), 21-34.
• Hussain, M. (2017). Knowledge Enclosure and University Education: Notes from Post-restructured Bangladesh. In A. Bartlett & J. Clemens (Ed.) What is Education? Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.