Fathers have figured in studies of the family, gender relations and masculinity and yet have rarely been the central subjects of investigation. This interdisciplinary conference brings together research on the experiences, meanings and representations of paternity in different societies and cultures. Exploring the many aspects of fathers’ lives and their relationships with others, both inside and outside the family, the conference also examines how discourses and practices of fatherhood have shaped ideas about the individual, society and modernity, from the seventeenth century to the present.

Papers might include:

• the diversity of paternal roles (e.g. single parenthood, widower-hood, step-fatherhood and grand-fatherhood)
• gender, paternity and parenthood
• negotiating spousal and parental roles
• father-child relations
• genetics and inheritance
• separation and the loss of the father
• intimacy, distance and commitment
• work, migration and kinship roles
• fatherhood, social power and social exclusion
• patriarchy, paternalism and the politics of fatherhood
• fathers, the law and the state
• ideology, advice and prescription
• fatherhood and masculinity
• autobiography and family history
• religion, psychoanalysis and the symbolic power of the father
• fictional, imagined and ideal fathers
• theorising fatherhood.

Speakers include:

• Megan Doolittle (Open University)
• Claudia Nelson (Southwest Texas State)
• David Morgan (Manchester, NTNU, Trondheim )
• John Tosh (Roehampton)