Fantastic Blackness

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

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.

Hosts Shanté Paradigm Smalls and Tavia Nyong'o discuss Shanté's new book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York CityThanks 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! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosts Tav and Shanté welcome playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for this two-part special! Show notes coming soon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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.Cover art contains artwork from the book's original cover art by Nandipha Mntambo, the piece is called Europa, from 2008. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosts Shanté and Tav discuss HBO’s recently completed Watchmen series and how it broke boundaries in its reckoning with legacies of racism. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.