How might Black fatherhood be understood as an improvisational practice? Across histories of racial capitalism, displacement, surveillance, and social constraint, Black paternal life has often unfolded beyond the frames of patriarchal authority and normative domesticity. In these conditions, fatherhood may be enacted through adaptive, creative, and relational practices that exceed dominant frameworks of masculinity and family.

This panel invites interdisciplinary papers that examine Black fatherhood through the lens of improvisation — as a mode of kin-making, identity formation, temporal negotiation, and social navigation. Improvisation here signals both response to constraint and generative practice, opening questions about how paternal relation is enacted, represented, archived, and theorized.

We welcome contributions from American studies, Black studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, anthropology, sociology, literary studies, performance studies, and related fields.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Black fatherhood and alternative kinship formations

• Improvisation, masculinity, and paternal identity

• Presence, absence, and distance in paternal relation

• Carcerality, surveillance, and the restructuring of fatherhood

• Migration, diaspora, and transnational paternal practices

• Queer, trans, or gender-expansive Black fatherhood

• Archival challenges and methodological questions in studying Black fathers

• Cultural, literary, visual, or sonic representations of Black paternal life

• Memory, intergenerational relation, and paternal narration

• Political economy, labor, and the conditions shaping fatherhood

The panel especially welcomes papers grounded in diverse archives, historical moments, and cultural contexts that open new perspectives on Black paternal life.

Submission guidelines:
Please send a 250-word abstract and brief bio (2–3 sentences) to Dr. Nicole R. Diop:  nicole.richards@csus.edu by Saturday 2/28/2026. 
Include “ASA Panel CFP — Black Fatherhood” in the subject line 

Scholars at all career stages, including graduate students and independent researchers, are encouraged to apply.