The Imagination Desk

Katie Bouman

Feb 10, 2021

Katie Bouman is an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy at Caltech in Pasadena, California. In this episode, we talk about scientific collaboration, imagination, and Katie’s work on the Event Horizon Telescope, which produced the first image of a black hole...

Regina Kanyu Wang

Dec 1, 2020

Regina Kanyu Wang is a science fiction writer, researcher, and critic from Shanghai. She is now based at the University of Oslo, where she is part of the CoFUTURES project. In this conversation, we talk about the Chinese science fiction scene, its fan culture, and gender politics in the genre, as well as insights on...

Moya Bailey

Nov 6, 2020

Moya Bailey is a Black queer feminist scholar, writer, and activist. She is the co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice and has a new book, Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance, coming out May 2021. In this conversation, we talk about online communities of support and...

Troy L. Wiggins

Oct 16, 2020

Troy L. Wiggins is a writer and editor with a focus on Black speculative fiction and social justice.

In this episode of The Imagination Desk, we chat with Troy about power of speculative art as a tool for Black people around the world to reckon with their realities, share their histories and imagine new worlds.

Ytasha Womack

Oct 6, 2020

Ytasha Womack is an award-winning author, filmmaker, independent scholar, and dance therapist. She is a leading expert on Afrofuturism, and on the imagination and its applications. In this conversation, we discuss her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, her film A Love Letter To The...