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.
Fantastic Blackness
Claim This Podcastby Fantastic Blackness with Shanté Paradigm Smalls
5.0(10 reviews)
13 episodes
Updated Weekly
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Podcast Overview
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.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
10/2/2019
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Recent Episodes
November 18, 2025
Season 4, episode 1: andré m carrington, PhD: sci fi, race, gender, and genre
<p>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.</p><p><strong>Guest: andré m carrington</strong> is a scholar of race, gender, and genre in Black and American cultural production. He is Associate Professor of English at the <strong>University of California, Riverside </strong>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 <strong>The Black Fantastic (2025)</strong>, the Library of America anthology of contemporary short speculative fiction by Black authors. His forthcoming book, <strong>Audiofuturism</strong>, on radio adaptations of Black speculative texts. He is a past recipient of fellowships from the <strong>Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study</strong> at Harvard and the <strong>National Humanities Center</strong>. His writing appears in journals, books, and blogs including <a href="https://huntington.org/verso/octavia-e-butler-community-then-and-now"><u>Verso</u></a> and <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/crossover-convergence-and-the-cultural-politics-of-black-comics/">Black Perspectives</a>. He lives in Riverside and he enjoys birding.</p><p>SPS: tell me about what brought you to sci fi, speculation, fantasy?</p><p>SPS: why do you write about sci fi, blackness, gender, and genre?</p><p>SPS: how is West coast US sci fi different from East coast US sci fi?</p><p>SPS: if you had to pick a dystopian work to describe our world right now, what would it be?</p><p>SPS: let’s talk about your books: first, tell me about your forthcoming work <a href="https://fordhampress.com/audiofuturism-hb-9781531513320.html">Audiofuturism</a> (2026) and then let’s talk about <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/the-black-fantastic-20-afrofuturist-stories-paperback/">The Black Fantastic <u>(2025)</u></a><strong> </strong>which came out in Feb 2025 and then your first book, <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816678969/speculative-blackness/">Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction</a> (2016)</p><p>SPS: what sci fi film, books, comics, or music are you grooving to right now?</p><p>SPS: thank you so much for joining us today</p><p>Show notes: Media we discussed</p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4547056/">The Girl with All the Gifts</a></p><p><a href="https://www.loa.org/books/the-black-fantastic-20-afrofuturist-stories-paperback/">The Black Fantastic</a></p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032">Three Body Problem</a></p><p><a href="https://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/2211/James%20Tiptree%20Jr%20-%20The%20Girl%20Who%20Was%20Plugged%20In.htm">The Girl Who Was Plugged In</a></p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9253284/">Andor</a></p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748528/">Rogue One</a></p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/">Idiocracy</a></p><p><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250212696/kinning/">Kinning <u>by Nisi Shawl</u></a></p><p><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/speculative-relations">Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair,<u> Joseph M. Pierce</u></a></p><p><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-End-of-the-World-As-We-Know-It/Christopher-Golden/9781668057551">The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s <u>The Stand</u></a></p><p><br></p>
July 4, 2024
The Dystopian Present
<p>A special solo episode from Shanté Paradigm Smalls, <em>The Dystopian Present</em>, explores a new magazine-style format where the podcast covers several different topics.</p>
April 11, 2023
In The Bleak Midwinter
<p>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.</p>
13 total episodes available
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- What is Fantastic Blackness?
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This podcast updates weekly.
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This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
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Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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