CFC Book Club: Father Time

Starting October 2025

Sarah Hrdy will be our guest scientist for the Spring 2026 Midwest Symposium (May 1-2).   CFC faculty member, Sydney Reed, is organizing a reading group focused on her recent book: Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies (link: Princeton University Press)

From the publisher:

It has long seemed self-evident that women care for babies and men do other things. Hasn’t it always been so? When evolutionary science came along, it rubber-stamped this venerable division of labor: mammalian males evolved to compete for status and mates, while females were purpose-built to gestate, suckle, and otherwise nurture the victors’ offspring. But come the twenty-first century, increasing numbers of men are tending babies, sometimes right from birth. How can this be happening? Puzzled and dazzled by the tender expertise of new fathers around the world—several in her own family—celebrated evolutionary anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy set out to trace the deep history of male nurturing and explain a surprising departure from everything she had assumed to be “normal.”

Here are some of the awards the book has received:

  • 2024 New Statesman Best of the Academic Presses.
  • Daily Express Best Book of the Year
  • Financial Times Best Summer Science Book
  • Telegraph Best Book to Read This Summer
  • Winner of the 2025 PROSE Award in Biological Anthropology and Archaeology from the Association of American Publishers
  • Long-listed for a 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
The group will meet the third Monday of each month (starting October 20) from 7 P.M. – 8:15 P.M (CT).   Participants will be asked to help guide the discussion during the 7 month time-table.  Each session will cover two chapters in the book.
The group is free of charge.
Interested individuals should contact Sydney Reed to discuss participation.

Fee

Free

Date

Meeting Dates: October 20, November 17, December 15, January 19, February 16, March 16, April 20

Time: 7 P.M. – 8:15 P.M. CST

Faculty Coordinator

For more information, please contact Sydney Reed.