Black Quantum Futurist Rasheedah Phillips on the Physics of Time in the Archive

I recently recorded a podcast for the New Books Network with Rasheedah Phillips, queer housing advocate, lawyer, parent, interdisciplinary artist, and co-creator of the art duo Black Quantum Futurism. In the podcast, we talked about her new book, Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time (AK Press, 2025), then came here to continue our conversation.

Sullivan Summer: When we ended our New Books Network podcast talk, you were talking about something quite significant, and a lot of fun, that got left out of Dismantling the Master’s Clock. Can you talk a little bit more about what got left out?

Rasheedah Phillips: I had a whole chapter in Dismantling the Master’s Clock. It was supposed to be Chapter 8, the elusive Chapter 8, but the book was too long, so we had to cut it out, unfortunately. But the chapter was about time travel, specifically, and it was called “The Black Grandmother Paradox.” It actually builds on a blog that I wrote some years ago that was really comparing the logics of traditional time travel narratives, both in film and in literature to black temporal logics that were emerging in different films, and that are a part of different literature as well. I had extended that chapter, and the chapter compared films like Back to the Future all these time travel films that I love, that I’ve watched, that I’ve studied.

As a writer of time travel fiction myself, I just really love these shows and films. But I recognize that often in these narratives, the person who’s time traveling is a white male. There are scientists, they’re using a machine, and they are often operating, even though they’re time traveling, on the same sort of logics that guide our regular, normal reality. And it’s like, okay, it’s fictional, you have a chance to break out of these logics, but often they don’t. And even though it’s fictional, it is a reflection on what we see as possible in actual reality.

So then, you know, I noticed that there were emerging a lot of different time travel and time-based films that starred and featured black people. So I did some comparisons around some of those films and then also looked at literature, so looked at like Toni Morrison’s work, of course, Octavia Butler’s work and, again, how time is set up in these narratives that are intentionally incorporating time and memory into how the worlds are constructed, and how the characters interact with reality and other people.

Summer: I can see how that is a whole separate book. (Laughs)

Phillips: True. True. (Laughs)

Summer: Even if a short book, a whole separate book for sure. That sounds exciting. What books are you reading right now?

Phillips: I am perpetually reading a million books, and never reading one at a time.

Summer: I love it. That’s the way to do it.

Phillips: Yes. But I have been reading a couple of books from the same author who’s a philosopher named Michael Marder, and his books are all about plant time and how plants experience time. And how that temporality really undergirds our reality in some ways that, again, if we weren’t approaching time objectively or based on clock logics, that plant time is like its own sort of temporality that is closer to nature and how nature may be manifesting time or experiencing time, than clock time. So I’ve been kind of obsessed, but it’s taken me a long time to get through these books.

Also I’ve been getting back into some short stories lately, reading a lot of different short stories. I really like [Jorge Luis] Borges. He has a lot of short stories that are very heady, which I really appreciate, so I’ve been revisiting those stories. Although, as with most folks who are not who are of color, not black folks, apparently he was racist, which is hurting my heart because his work is so good. But like, yeah, it’s very problematic. He writes in a way that I wish I could write. So it’s very—Yeah, it’s very problematic. And I am not a “separate the art from the artist” type of person.

Summer: Oh. This is a whole other conversation. (Laughs)

Phillips: (Laughs). Right. So I have to, like, divorce myself from that. But I have been reading some of that lately.

And I have also found that like his influence has been present in like a lot of the films that I like. Interstellar by that film that is ultimately about time, which I’m going to do. I need to add to the chapter because I don’t analyze it that deeply. I actually talk more about Tenet in my book than I do Interstellar, but I’m going to bring in Interstellar.

I think Christopher Nolan was influenced a lot by Borges as well, so that’s some of what I’m reading. And then some little bits of different things. I read a lot of physics articles. I get physics news on my phone. I’m always reading that stuff in the latest quantum physics happenings, which is always interesting and amazing and inspirational. It’s so interesting that this stuff doesn’t rise to the level of normal—like our everyday news, because it is literally reality-changing stuff. Like the things that they’re finding out about black holes, and about quantum physics—about just the marriage of general relativity. All these things that are happening through like experimentation and things that folks are doing. But it doesn’t emerge into our reality.

So I think that’s part of my work, right? Part of my work is: How do we socialize these things that tell us that reality can be different, and that align with other ways, other cultural norms for experiencing space and time? How can I like push that out into reality more?

Summer: I do think that’s part of your work. And the reason I say that is because I knew nothing about—I didn’t even take physics in high school. I was like, when can I be done with science? I’m out. And I was so moved and inspired by your book. I’ve talked about it with a million people who are also not science people. And I’m trying to explain it, which is a little silly. I do my best. But now, I’m going to get all of my physics information through you. That’s the lens I want it through, in fact. I don’t want to sign up for any science—I don’t want anything delivered to my phone about physics. I want it through you.

Phillips: I love it. I love it. Thank you.

Summer: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.