Thomas Blakeslee entered the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2018. A UC Berkeley graduate and McNair scholar, his general scholarly interests include social histories of the African Diaspora in the United States, resistance movements, family histories, gender, and masculinity. More specifically, Thomas’s research has centered on the ways in which black masculinity was constructed at different points in history in response to white male domination. Moreover, Thomas has published and presented research which emphasized African American men’s claim to fatherhood in spite of the disruptions of chattel slavery and later societal impediments.