Fantastic Blackness

About Fantastic Blackness

Fantastic Blackness is an irregular podcast by Shanté Paradigm Smalls focused on Black Queer Trans art, politics, aesthetics, and news. Features interviews with artmakers, reviews of art shows, stage plays, books, film and television, and topical discussion.

Publisher

Fantastic Blackness with Shanté Paradigm Smalls

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

2 Oct 2019

Latest episode

18 Nov 2025

Latest episodes

13 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Nov 2025

   Season 4, episode 1: andré m carrington, PhD: sci fi, race, gender, and genre

   Fantastic Blackness is an irregular podcast by Shanté Paradigm Smalls focused on Black Queer Trans art, politics, aesthetics, and news. Features interviews with artmakers, reviews of art shows, stage plays, books, film and television, and topical discussion. Guest: andré m carrington is a scholar of race, gender, and genre in Black and American cultural production. He is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside where he also directs the program in Speculative Fictions & Cultures of Science. His first book, Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (Minnesota, 2016) interrogates the cultural politics of race in the fantastic genres and fan cultures. He is editor of The Black Fantastic (2025), the Library of America anthology of contemporary short speculative fiction by Black authors. His forthcoming book, Audiofuturism, on radio adaptations of Black speculative texts. He is a past recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and the National Humanities Center. His writing appears in journals, books, and blogs including Verso (https://huntington.org/verso/octavia-e-butler-community-then-and-now) and Black Perspectives (https://www.aaihs.org/crossover-convergence-and-the-cultural-politics-of-black-comics/). He lives in Riverside and he enjoys birding. SPS: tell me about what brought you to sci fi, speculation, fantasy? SPS: why do you write about sci fi, blackness, gender, and genre? SPS: how is West coast US sci fi different from East coast US sci fi? SPS: if you had to pick a dystopian work to describe our world right now, what would it be? SPS: let’s talk about your books: first, tell me about your forthcoming work Audiofuturism (https://fordhampress.com/audiofuturism-hb-9781531513320.html) (2026) and then let’s talk about The Black Fantastic (2025) (https://www.loa.org/books/the-black-fantastic-20-afrofuturist-stories-paperback/) which came out in Feb 2025 and then your first book, Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816678969/speculative-blackness/) (2016) SPS: what sci fi film, books, comics, or music are you grooving to right now? SPS: thank you so much for joining us today Show notes: Media we discussed The Girl with All the Gifts (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4547056/) The Black Fantastic (https://www.loa.org/books/the-black-fantastic-20-afrofuturist-stories-paperback/) Three Body Problem (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032) The Girl Who Was Plugged In (https://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/2211/James%20Tiptree%20Jr%20-%20The%20Girl%20Who%20Was%20Plugged%20In.htm) Andor (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9253284/) Rogue One (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748528/) Idiocracy (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/) Kinning by Nisi Shawl (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250212696/kinning/) Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair, Joseph M. Pierce (https://www.dukeupress.edu/speculative-relations) The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-End-of-the-World-As-We-Know-It/Christopher-Golden/9781668057551)

2. 

   4 Jul 2024

   The Dystopian Present

   A special solo episode from Shanté Paradigm Smalls, The Dystopian Present, explores a new magazine-style format where the podcast covers several different topics.

3. 

   11 Apr 2023

   In The Bleak Midwinter

   Hosts Shanté Paradigm Smalls and Tavia Nyong'o dig into why horror is trending in Black entertainment today. They discuss how horror, like comedy, allows space for the unsayable or the indelicate, and how Black horror can directly address the everyday horrors of racism and gender terrorism, heightened by and contrasted with more supernatural effects.

4. 

   18 Apr 2022

   Hip Hop Heresies

   Hosts Shanté Paradigm Smalls and Tavia Nyong'o discuss Shanté's new book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City Thanks to our ace producer Alex van Gils and to NYU Press for the cover image of Hip Hop Heresies. Artwork by Qrky. Music in this episode by B.Q.E. “Understand/Overstand” and Blocka Beats, “Peace and Grow.” Peace Out! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

5. 

   15 Jan 2022

   Branden Jacobs-Jenkins pt. 2

   In this two part conversation with MacArthur Genius Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Shanté and Tav discuss making black theater and television now. In addition to Branden’s work on adapting Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred (1979) and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986) to the screen, topics discussed include #WhiteTheaterWeSeeYou , #BlackLiveMatter, and the enduring influence of Performance Studies on all three. Part 2 of 2. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

6. 

   3 Oct 2021

   Branden Jacobs-Jenkins pt. 1

   In this two part conversation with MacArthur Genius Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Shanté and Tav discuss making black theater and television now. In addition to Branden’s work on adapting Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred (1979) and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986) to the screen, topics discussed include #WhiteTheaterWeSeeYou , #BlackLiveMatter, and the enduring influence of Performance Studies on all three. Part 1 of 2. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

7. 

   13 Jul 2021

   Spooky Pride

   For the first episode of season two of Fantastic Blackness, hosts Tav and Shanté discuss Lovecraft Country, and what could have been (and may still be if picked up by another streaming service or network) on Season 2. For show notes, check out the substack: https://fantasticblackness.substack.com/p/spooky-pride-2021-hbos-lovecraft Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

8. 

   21 Mar 2021

   Becoming Human

   Hosts Shanté and Tav sit down with author Zakiyyah Iman Jackson to break down her new book: Becoming Black: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. You can find Professor Jackson's book on her website: https://www.zakiyyahimanjackson.com (https://www.zakiyyahimanjackson.com). Cover art contains artwork from the book's original cover art by Nandipha Mntambo, the piece is called Europa, from 2008. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

9. 

   28 Aug 2020

   The Fire This Time

   Hosts Shanté and Tav discuss things Black and Fantastic from within the COVID-19 pandemic and a heightened anti-Black racial pandemic. Our hosts reflect on academia, performative allyship, and share their pandemic playlists and reading lists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

10. 

    5 May 2020

    Butler's Parable Series

    Hosts Shanté and Tav welcome guest Jayna Brown (Media Studies, Pratt Institute) to discuss Octavia Butler’s Parable series and her forthcoming book, Black Utopias. Recorded via videoconferencing during COVID-19 quarantine. This episode's image contains original book cover artwork by John Jude Palencar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

11. 

    11 Feb 2020

    Watching Watchmen

    Hosts Shanté and Tav discuss HBO’s recently completed Watchmen series and how it broke boundaries in its reckoning with legacies of racism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

12. 

    6 Dec 2019

    Black Fantasy

    Hosts Shanté and Tavia discuss fantasy as genre being particularly relevant to Black folks—it includes and venerates oral traditions, myth, and folklore over or included alongside technology and hard science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

13. 

    2 Oct 2019

    All About Janelle

    In this debut episode, co-hosts Shanté and Tav introduce the themes of the podcast — which will consider race and speculation in all their manifestations — and breakdown the career to date of Janelle Monáe, a music icon of afrofuturism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Contact Fantastic Blackness

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.