Dr. chaz antoine Barracks
Chaz (he/him/they/them) is a Black queer femme cultural critic, filmmaker, podcast host, and scholar in residence at University of Richmond. He is based in Richmond, Virginia. Born in Connecticut, he was raised with strong Jamaican cultural upbringings and flamboyant, always over-the-top aesthetics. Chaz’s everyday Black Matter consists of a deep love of travel, both far and near, and being in community and collaboration with fellow creatives on ways to make education more accessible and representative of reality pedagogy, everyday life. As someone who works at the crossroad between education and nonprofit institutions, Chaz’s intellectual ambition is to always find ways to challenge and be challenged to express who we are, uninhibited by the oppressive forces of power and privilege that seek to dictate how Black/queer people show up as ourselves. Chaz is a new dog-dad, in love with the color orange, and enjoys a good scoop of ice cream from somewhere local.
Chaz earned his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Media, Art, and Text (MATX) program in May 2020, after completing a Master’s in Nonprofit Studies, focusing on youth programs and public arts, from the University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. He is also a Bonner Scholar alum. Chaz earned his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Media, Art, and Text (MATX) program in May 2020, after completing a Master’s in Nonprofit Studies, focusing on youth programs and public arts, from the University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. He is also a Bonner Scholar alum. Chaz’s work brings together complex and nuanced approaches to personal as political knowledge production and public scholarship that position Black storytelling as a critical means to bridge knowledge gaps and recognize local cultural producers. His scholarship blends together Black studies, Black queer feminist narratives, and performance through art and media-making to cultivate creative expression and reimagine spaces from rigid notions of normativity.
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Chaz was selected as one of Style Weekly magazine’s Richmond ‘Top 40 under 40’, and in September 2020 he released a film project, titled Everyday Black Matter, written and directed in part through adapting his research and writings from his dissertation manuscript, Black Queer Futures (BQF) in Real Time: Multidimensional Identity and Imaginative Media Practice. *Forthcoming mixtape akaa book dropping soon!
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A major component of Chaz’s community engagement is based at Six Points Innovation Center, where he leads, consults, and volunteers as the Blackademic-in-Residence. The intention of the work is to help youth living in Highland Park and surrounding Richmond, VA neighborhoods to have access to career scholars at the universities that seek to engage in their neighborhood as well as offer creative academic programming around the city. This role is designated to contribute to grounding Black and queer knowledge production through creative public knowledge production and the building of an in-house “Blackademic” library, a diverse and open access book collection by Black/POC authors.
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Black Matter productions is a digital love child born from Chaz’s intellectual ambitions to blur the lines between academia, the arts, and authentic community engagement. This platform for media-arts and all things Black joy is in part evolved from what was formerly known as the I AM MY LIFE storytelling project, which was Chaz's previous engagement platform to carve out space for working with critical storytelling in Richmond, VA. In addition to subscribing to the Black Matter podcast, stay connected to this site, book Chaz, and follow our work on social media for featured updates and other ways to engage.
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Contact: chazbarracks@gmail.com
Chaz’s CV can be found here
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