Babette Thomas is a media artist, radio producer, and PhD candidate in the departments of Black Studies and American Studies at Yale University. They are also the co-host of the award-winning podcast, Gender Spiral.
Their work employs what they describe as a Black feminist media practice. Drawing from their academic research on the long histories of Black women who have used new media in service of the needs of their communities, they design and produce media experiences specifically aimed at communal convening, memory preservation, and generational healing for marginalized communities.
Through this, they also explore how new media (specifically sound media) can be used to preserve the site-specific Black histories in their hometown of Oakland, California, in the face of rapid gentrification–specifically emphasizing the restoration and recuperation of the political legacies of Black women.
Babette has held positions and affiliations with institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Museum of African American History, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Center For The Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, and NPR, where they specialized in producing podcasts, sound works, and digitizing exhibitions about Black history and culture.
They hold a B.A. from Brown University in Africana Studies (Honors) and Modern Culture and Media and a MPhil from Yale University in Black Studies and American Studies. Their forthcoming dissertation, “Can You Hear Me Now? 20th Century Black Feminist Soundwork in Transmission and Reception” is about Black women and girls’ transformation and innovation of the genre of American radio throughout the post-war era.
Panels & Public Speaking
“Creating Sonic Worlds on The Radio,” The School for Poetic Computation, Radio Radius: Mini FM and DIY Networks course, 2025
“Marlon Riggs and (Sonic) Oscillation as Black Feminist Multiplicity” for “Tongues Untied (1989) and Black Is…Black Ain’t (1995) in Conversation,” Tongues Untied at 35: Black Queerness, Art, and the Sacred, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 2025.
“Black Feminist Soundwork in Theory and Practice,” Sound Studies Working Group at NYU, 2025
"Visions of Black Futurity,” On Air Fest, 2022
“Rekindle: Using Radical Soundwork of the Past to Guide Us Beyond the Present Reckoning,” Third Coast Audio Festival, 2020
“Now Here This: A Model of College Community Storytelling,” Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, 2019
“Ethical Audio Stories: Teaching in the Age of the Sonic Color Line,” John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities, Brown University, 2019
Exhibitions
"Art and Code Showcase,” Demo Day Festival at NEW INC, 2024
“NEW INC's DEMO2023 Future Memory Flash Everything Party,” CARA, 2023
“SORRY, A Live Listening Party,” The RISD Museum, 2018
“CounterPoint,” DesignMarch, 2019
Fellowships, Awards & Residencies
Digital Exhibition Fellow, Yale Schwarzman Center, 2025
Gold Winner and Listener’s Choice Winner for Gender Spiral Podcast, Signal Awards, 2025
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 2025
Archival Fellow, Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media at Yale University, 2023
Artist Disruptor and Culture Bearer Award, The Center for Cultural Power & The California Arts Council, 2023
California Documentary Project Research and Development Grant Recipient, California Humanities, 2023
This Will Take Time Residency, Oakland, March 2021
SF MOMA Podcaster-In-Residence, 2021-2022
Royce Fellowship, Brown University, 2019
Digital Humanities Fellowship, EOS Africana, 2019
Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 2019
Press
Finding Kinship in the Archive: A Conversation with Babette Thomas, SF MOMA
"Black Art Was Her Language”: Searching For The Mother of a Movement, East Bay Yesterday
Rightnowish Presents: 'Visions of Black Futurity' from Raw Material, KQED
“Visions of Black Futurity” by Babette Thomas, podcaster in residence for SF MOMA’s Raw Material Podcast, Yale University