Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Thinking Stiffs: An Introduction ix
4. Part One. Fathers in Theory, Fathers in Praxis: Merging Work and Parenting
5. Disney Dad 3
6. Gaining a Daughter: A Father’s Transgendered Tale 7
7. Gifts from the Sea 16
8. The Luck of the Irish 26
9. Shifting the Tectonic Plates of Academia 29
10. Hair-Raising Experiences 34
11. A River Runs through It: Queer Theory and Fatherhood 46
12. On Writing and Rearing 50
13. Doing Things with Words 55
14. On Fecundity, Fidelity, and Expectation: Reflections on Philosophy and Fatherhood 59
15. Sheathing the Sword 66
16. Part Two. Family Made: The Difference of Alternative or Delayed Fatherhood
17. Weighed but Found Wanting: Ten Years of Being Measured and Divided 73
18. Vespers, Matins, Lauds: The Life of a Liberal Arts College Professor 83
19. How White Was My Prairie 88
20. Meniscus 95
21. Once Was Lost 100
22. Shared Attention: Hearing Cameron’s Voice 110
23. Accidental Academic, Deliberate Dad 116
24. Late Fatherhood among the Baptists 128
25. Being a Dad, Studying Fathers: A Personal Reflection 135
26. Single Dad in Academia: Fatherhood and the Redemption of Scholarship 141
27. Superheroes 150
28. Part Three. Forging New Fatherhoods: Ambitions Altered and Transformed
29. Maybe It Is Just Math: Fatherhood and Disease in Academia 159
30. Dreaming of Direction: Reconciling Fatherhood and Ambition 168
31. Making a Home for Family and Scholarship 176
32. Change Is Here, but We Need to Talk about It: Reflections on Black Fatherhood in the Academy 184
33. Vocabularies and Their Subversion: A Reminiscence 188
34. Balancing Diapers and a Doctorate: The Adventures of a Single Dad in Grad School 196
35. It’s a Chapter-Book, Huh: Teaching, Writing, and Early Fatherhood 201
36. Pitcher This: An Academic Dad’s Award-Winning Attempt to Be in Two Places at Once 207
37. Odd Quirks 217
38. The Precarious Private Life of Professor Father Fiction Chef and Other Possible Poignancies 224
39. Notes on Contributors 231