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- Shanté Paradigm Smalls
Associate Professor, Black Studies Affiliate Faculty: Critical Race & Ethnic Studies
BA, Smith CollegeMA, New York UniversityPh.D., New York University
Professional affiliations: American Literature Society, American Studies Association, African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), Black Performance Theory, Black Women’s Studies Association
Awards and distinctions:
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University (2019-2020)
Woodrow Wilson National Foundation Career Enhancement Junior Faculty Fellowship/Mellon Foundation Fellowship (2017-2018)
St. John’s University Faculty Recognition Award (2016, 2017)
CLAGS Fellowship Award for Best Manuscript in LGBTQ Studies (2016)
St. John’s University Center for Teaching and Learning Fellowship (2016-2018)
HASTAC Mentor (2015-2016)
American Psychoanalytic Association Mentor Program (2013)
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship (2011-2013)
Research Focus: Performance Studies, 19th C- 21st C Black Studies, Hip Hop Studies, Gender & Sexuality, Aesthetics, Media Studies, Speculative Studies, The Black Pacific, Psychoanalysis
Shanté Paradigm Smalls is a scholar, artist, and writer. Smalls’s teaching and research focuses on Black popular culture in music, film, visual art, genre fiction, and other aesthetic forms. Dr. Smalls recently finished their first scholarly manuscript, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City (forthcoming NYU Press), which won the 2016 CLAGS Fellowship Award for best manuscript in LGBTQ Studies. Hip Hop Heresies is the first of its kind—placing queerness, hip hop, and black aesthetics in conversation with one another to argue that New York City hip hop cultural production from the 1970s to the mid-2010s inherently employs “queer articulations” of race, gender, and sexuality.
Smalls’s writing has appeared in ArtLeaks Gazette (SUNY Albany), The Black Scholar, GL/Q, Women & Performance, Criticism, Lateral, American Behavioral Scientist, Suspect Thoughts, Syndicate Literature, and the Oxford Handbook of Queerness and Music. Dr. Smalls is currently an Associate Professor of Black Studies at St. John’s University in New York City. Dr. 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’s website: http://shanteparadigm.com
DMC and Greg Pak event (Oct 2015)
PhD Students
SJU:
Sonia Adams (ABD)
Racquel Corona (ABD, Lecturer, English, QCC-CUNY)
Tina Iemma (ABD)
Steven Ikeme
Angela Mosely (ABD, IDSVA)
Amity Nathaniel (ABD)
Justine Wilson (ABD)
Defended:
Sam McCalla (4/7/2020)
Tejan Waszak (3/28/20)
Timm Woods (9/05/2017): Professional Game Master
Regina Duthely (defended 3/30/2017): Assistant Professor, English, University of Puget Sound
Meghan Gilbert-Hickey (defended 5/16/2016): Assistant Professor, English, Guttman Community College, CUNY
Erica McCrystal (defended 4/5/2016): Part-Time Faculty, Centenary University)
Other Universities:
Christine Capetola, UT Austin (defended 4/4/2019, VAP, Tulane University)
Marthia Fuller, University of New Mexico (ABD)
Maria Lopez, University of New Mexico (defended June 2019, Postdoctoral Fellow, Latinx Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago)
MA Students:
Kayla Wilson (completed May 2020)
Geziell Nash (completed May 2019)
Michael Benjamin (completed May 2017)
Other Universities:
Katrina DeWees, Wesleyan University (completed May 2018)
*Make an appointment with me HERE*
Managing Editor, Journal of Hip Hop Studies
https://jhhsonline.org/
Butler’s Parable Series, Fantastic Blackness Podcast with Tav & Shanté, episode 4, season 1
“ ’All the Windows are Open’: Mourning, Black Womanhood, and the Performance of Trauma,” ArtLeaks Gazette, #5: Patriarchy Over and Out: Discourse Made Manifest, May 2019, SUNY Buffalo
Co-Editor, “Black Queer and Trans* Aesthetics,” special issue of The Black Scholar, 49.1, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtbs20/49/1?nav=tocList, January 2019
Butler’s Parable Series, Fantastic Blackness Podcast with Tav & Shanté, episode 4, season 1
“ ’All the Windows are Open’: Mourning, Black Womanhood, and the Performance of Trauma,” ArtLeaks Gazette, #5: Patriarchy Over and Out: Discourse Made Manifest, May 2019, SUNY Buffalo
Co-Editor, “Black Queer and Trans* Aesthetics,” special issue of The Black Scholar, 49.1, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtbs20/49/1?nav=tocList, January 2019
“Eating Popcorn with Chopsticks: Revisionary Black Masculinity in Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon,” Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Volume 58, Issue 2 (August 7, 2017)
Funk The Erotic symposium: https://syndicate.network/symposia/literature/funk-the-erotic/ (March 2017)
Book Manuscripts
"Queer Hip Hop: A Brief Historiography," The Oxford Handbook of Music and Queerness, edited by Fred Maus & Sheila Whitely. Online Publication Date: Sep 2018. DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199793525.013.103
Funk The Erotic symposium: https://syndicate.network/symposia/literature/funk-the-erotic/ (March 2017)
Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City (in progress; under review, New York University Press; Postmillenial Pop Series, Eds. Karen Tongson & Henry Jenkins)
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“Eating Popcorn with Chopsticks: Revisionary Black Masculinityin Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon” Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Volume 56, Issue 3, Summer 2014, (accepted)
“ ‘Make the Music with Your Mouth’: Sonic Subjectivities and Post-Modern Identity Formations in Beatboxing” Special Issue, “Queer the Noise,” Lateral: A Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, Vol. 3, Spring 2014
“Introduction: Critical Intimacies: Hip Hop as Queer Feminist Pedagogy,” co-written with Jessica N. Pabón, “All Hail the Queenz: A Queer Feminist Recalibration of Hip Hop,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, New York and London: Routledge, Vol. 24, Issue 1, March 2014
“The Rain Comes Down: Jean Grae and Hip Hop Heteronormativity,” American Behavioral Scientist, 55:1, (January): 86-95, 2011
“They Call Me, ‘Starfucker’,” Suspect Thoughts: A Journal of Subversive Writing, (July-December), Suspect Thoughts Press, Issue 19, 2007
Book Chapters
“Queer Hip Hop: A Brief Historiography,” The Oxford Handbook of Queerness and Music, Eds. Fred Maus and Sheila Whitely, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press (solicited; forthcoming 2015)
Edited Peer-Reviewed Journals
Co-editor with Jessica N. Pabón, “All Hail the Queenz: A Queer Feminist Recalibration of Hip Hop,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, New York and London: Routledge, Vol. 24, Issue 1, March 2014
Encyclopedia Essays
“W.H. Auden,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 70-71, 2007
“J.M. Barrie,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 123-124, 2007
“John Galsworthy,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 503-504, 2007
“Harley Granville-Barker,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 548, 2007
“Christopher Isherwood,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 708, 2007
“Lynn Nottage,” Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Every Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 978-979,
Invited Talks
2014
Interview Junot Díaz with Santiago Vaquera-Vsáquez, Jean Cocteau Theatre, Santa Fe, NM, April 21
“Who Is the I?,” One Mic Festival, University of DC, District of Columbia, March 31
“Race/Performance,” with Katie Brewer Ball, Queer and Now: Rethinking Queer Theory in the Humanities, Sexual Politics/Sexual Poetics Collective Symposium, The Center for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, March 7
“Locating Hip Hop’s Queerness: the Sugarhill Gang and Age of Consent,” Department of English, St. John’s University, Queens, NY, February 7
2013
" ‘Why Won’t You Let Me Be Great?’: Pariah, the Queer Female Black Artist, and the Parental Bond,” with James Ford and Uri McMillan, Department of English and Oxy Cinematique, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, November 15
“Hip Hop Weirdness/Queerness: Embodiment, Theory, Praxis,” Women’s and Gender Studies Research, Development and Advancement colloquium, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, February 4
2012
“‘Homeless Hotspots’: Marketing the Abject Body,” Narrative session, with Tavia Nyong’o, Fran Illich, William Scott, and Andrew Ross, Winning the Crisis Symposium, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, New York, NY, March 21-22
“Secret Asian Man: Martin Wong’s Archive and New York City Early Hip Hop’s Interraciality,” Department of American Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, February 13
“Youth, Popular Culture, and Schooling,” Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, February 16
“Queer Hip Hop,” Department of Communication, St. Mary’s College of California, Moraga, CA, January 2
Panels Organized
2015
“Performing Impossibility: Memorializing José Esteban Muñoz,” GL/Q Caucus for the Modern Languages (Guaranteed Session), with Rod Ferguson, Karen Jaime, Leon Hilton, Roy Pérez, and Juana María Rodríguez, Modern Languages Association (MLA), Vancouver, BC, January 8-11, co-organized with Melissa Gonzalez
2014
“My Body, All Over Your Body: Desire, Collaboration, and the Doing of Pleasure,” American Studies Association, Los Angeles, CA, November 6-9
“Wild/Queer/Vulnerable,” GL/Q Caucus for the Modern Languages (Guaranteed Session), with Anjali Arondekar, Tavia Nyong’o, and Ramón Rivera-Severa, Modern Languages Association (MLA), Chicago, IL, Respondent, January 9-12, Co-organized with Larry La Fountain-Stokes and Melissa Gonzalez
2013
“Hard Knock Life”: The Queer Aesthetic Trespass of Jay-Z,” Genealogies of Hip Hop Aesthetics: Chopped and Screwed, Nicki Minaj, and Jay-Z, with Uri McMillan and James Ford, Performance Studies International (PSi), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, June 26-30
“Black Death, Black Life: Queer Female Vampires in SF,” ‘All Black Everything’: Speculative Futures of Blackness in Literature, Film, and Performance, with André Carrington and Daniel Shank Cruz, Modern Languages Association (MLA), Boston, MA, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, January 3-6
2012
“‘Voices Carry’: Queer Dissonance and the Travel of NYC 1980s Hip-Hop Sound,” ‘Beat Street’: New York City Hip-Hop Sound Discourses from 1980 to the Present, EMP Pop Conference (EMP), New York University, New York, NY, Oral Presentation/Refereed
Paper, March 22-25
“‘Make the Music with Your Mouth’: Sonic Subjectivity and Post-Modern
Identity Formations in Beatboxing,” The 5th Element of Beatboxing and the American Human Beatbox Festival, Show and Prove Hip Hop Conference, New York University, New York, NY, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, March 31
“Martin Wong’s Queer Visuality,” Secret Asian Man: Martin Wong’s Influence on 1980s New York City Subcultures, with Roy Pérez and Lawrence M. La Fountain-Stokes, Modern Languages Association (MLA), Seattle, WA, Talk/Oral Presentation, Refereed Paper, January 5-8
Papers Presented
2014
“Untitled,” My Body, All Over Your Body: Desire, Collaboration, and the Doing of Pleasure,” “The Body and the Blood: Marvel’s Bloodstorm,” with Ramzi Fawaz, Uri McMillan, Amber Musser, Jennifer Christine Nash, and Roy Pérez, American Studies Association, Los Angeles, CA, November 6-9
The Order of Desire: Sexuality, Sequential Art, and Comic Book Culture in the Late 20th Century,” with Ramzi Fawaz, Siobhan Somerville, and Matthew Tinkcom, Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS), Seattle, WA, March 19-23
2013
“The New Black is the Old Black: Hip Hop Culture, Production, and Studies in the Age of Black Authenticity and Post-Blackness,” Whose Knowledge? Whose Interest?: Authenticity and the Politics of Knowledge,” Critical Ethnic Studies Association (CESA), University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, IL, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, September 19-21
2012
“Queer Dissonance: The Art of Queer Hip Hop Music,” The Queerness of Hip Hop/The Hip Hop of Queerness, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, September 21
“Afro-Asian Aesthetics in Early Hip Hop Culture and Performance: Martin Wong’s
Graffiti and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon,” Performing History, Expanding Race: Afro-Asian and Arab-Asian Hip Hop, Film and Spoken Word, with Junaid Raina, Vanita Reddy, and Anuntha Sudhakar, Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS), Washington, DC, Oral Presentation/Refereed Paper, April 11-15
“Queer Hip Hop Diasporas: A (Brief) History,” Theorizing Hip Hop: New Approaches to Hip Hop as Intellectual Production, with James Ford, Michael Ralph, and Jill Richardson, Modern Languages Association (MLA), Seattle WA, Talk/Oral Presentation, Refereed Paper, January 5-8
Courses at St. Johns’s University
Undergraduate:
Literature in the Global Context: Global Blackness
Race & Speculation (Senior Seminar)
Hip Hop Aesthetics
Graduate:
Queer Theory: US People of Color