Shante T. Smalls

Research interests: Black transnationalism, Black Speculation (Afrofuturism, African Futurism, Caribbean Futurism, Graphic Novels), Performance Studies, Hip Hop Studies, Music & Sound Studies, Critical Theory,  Visual Culture, Black Literature & Culture, Gender & Sexuality, Queer & Trans Studies, Ethnography, Tantric Buddhism

Shanté Paradigm Smalls (they, them) is a scholar, artist, and writer and the Chair of and an Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Public Policy. Their teaching, writing, and research focus on Black popular culture in music, film, visual art, genre fiction, and other aesthetic forms. Dr. Smalls’ first book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City, published by NYU Press in June 2022, won the 2016 CLAGS Fellowship Award for best manuscript in LGBTQ Studies, the 2022-2023 New York City Book Award from the New York Society Library, the Honorable Mention for the International Book Prize from IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music), and was shortlisted for the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame's Book Prize. 

Their writing has appeared in The Arrow, QED, The Black Scholar, GL/Q, Women & Performance, Criticism, Lateral, American Behavioral Scientist, Suspect Thoughts, Syndicate Literature, the Feminist Press’s Queer and Now anthology, the Oxford Handbook of Queerness and Music, and the Hip Hop Studies and Black Queer Feminism anthology (forthcoming 2026). They are currently researching and writing a manuscript on Harriet Tubman and a manuscript on Black Futurity in the speculative genre. 

Prior to joining APP in 2023, Smalls was an Associate Professor of Black Studies in the Department of English, Faculty in the Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Institute, and Founding Co-Director of the LGBTQ+ Center at St. John’s University where they worked from 2014-2023. They were also an Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of New Mexico, as well as a Visiting Assistant Professor/Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Davidson College. Smalls has held fellowships from the University of Rochester Humanities Center, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly Woodrow Wilson Foundation), and the James Weldon Johnson Fellowship at Emory University.

Smalls received their PhD in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, their MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and their BA in English and Theatre from Smith College.

To see more, go to Dr. Smalls’ website: http://shanteparadigm.com