E33 - Dismantling the Master's Clock

In this episode, we speak with Rasheedah Phillips about her groundbreaking book Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time. Drawing from Black Quantum Futurism, Phillips challenges dominant, Western notions of time – showing how they have been shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and racial oppression. Why does time seem to move only forward? Why are certain experiences –  like aging or birth – treated as irreversible, even though physics suggests otherwise? Phillips explores how Black and Afrodiasporic communities have imagined and practiced alternative conceptions of time, where past, present, and future are interwoven rather than linear.


Bio: Rasheedah Phillips is a queer housing advocate, lawyer, parent, and interdisciplinary artist working through a Black futurist lens. Phillips is the founder of the AfroFuturist Affair, founding member of the Metropolarity Queer Speculative Fiction Collective, and co-creator of the art duo Black Quantum Futurism. Phillips’ work has been featured in the New York Times, The Wire, New York Magazine, Boston Review, Hyperallergic, and e-flux.

Ash Sharma is an independent researcher and writer, and editor of journal darkmatter.

For more on the book.