The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality ed. by Mathew Kuefler (review)

REVIEWS 192 ing into the framework explained in the introduction. It would have been useful to the reader to have guideposts throughout the volume. SARAH WHITTEN, History, UCLA The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Mathew Kuefler (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2006) 348 pp. In 2005, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (CSTH) and the tenth anniversary of the death of John Boswell, Mathew Kuefler edited a collection of essays considering the influence of the book and author, assessing their arguments , and mapping their impact within the study of premodern sexuality. The Boswell Thesis, published one year later, brought together the historical and historiographical work of sixteen scholars, in what is a tribute to the man, his life, and his scholarship. The edited volume commences with an introduction by Kuefler. Likewise entitled “The Boswell Thesis,” it presents an outline of CSTH, the passionate reactions to it, Boswell’s response, and the larger social and political context. This first article provides an excellent starting point for the volume by laying out the main arguments of Boswell’s work, as well as the controversies and critiques surrounding it. Kuefler quite deftly presents the context from which CSTH emerged, setting the stage for the fifteen essays to follow. The book then divides into three main sections. The first four articles, grouped under the title of “Impact,” “assess the direct impact of the book in different areas” (20). Ralph Hexter begins by reminiscing about the man who was a close colleague and friend. He then discusses the larger questions (scholarly and socially) about homosexuality, tolerance, and Christianity that Boswell’s work ignited, defending CSTH against its detractors. Next, Carolyn Dinshaw delves into the archives to examine the broader (that is, non-academic) reaction to this seminal work, quoting the extensive fan mail its author received and discussing how Boswell engaged with the non-scholarly world. Continuing along this trajectory, Bernard Schlager provides an interesting look at how Boswell’s book has played an important role in the plight of Christian homosexuals. In doing so, Schlager necessarily recognizes CSTH’s acceptance by this audience “as the most authoritative scholarly treatment of homosexuality and Christianity ever written,” and discusses Boswell’s own assertion that his work be employed in social struggles (75–76). He then traces how specific arguments in the work helped to affirm the gay-rights movement. Finally Mark Jordan, in a related piece, explores John Boswell as both Christian and historian, and how these two roles served mutual and conflicting goals and ultimately affected the ways in which people understood his work. The second section of The Boswell Thesis consists of five essays addressing the “Debates” sparked by Boswell’s seminal work. It begins with Amy Richlin, who richly builds upon a brief reference in CSTH describing the letters between Marcus Aurelius and his tutor Front as demonstrating “passionate or ‘erotic’ friendship between males” (111). Richlin studies these at first lost and then neglected letters, arguing quite convincingly that they concentrate on both rhetoric and love—the latter being a physical and erotic love between two men, REVIEWS 193 much in the style of Greek pederasty. Dale B. Martin takes up a more prominent reference from Boswell’s book: Paul’s mention (and possible condemnation ) of homosexuality in Romans 1.18–32. Although Martin examines the verses and their historical context in some depth, his essay is more an analysis of the ideologies behind modern scholarly interpretations of these biblical lines. Forcefully arguing for a modernday heterosexism that is distinctly different from Paul’s, Martin concludes that heterosexist studies of Paul’s writing are not objective, largely because they are a product of a cultural homophobia. The third essay in “Debates,” written by E. Ann Matter, discusses a topic that Boswell was criticized for largely ignoring in his CSTH: “Woman-Oriented Women” (or lesbians, to use the modern term) in the Middle Ages. In a short essay, Matter first cites various letters and songs expressing love and passion between females to prove the existence of such relations. Then she turns to penitential and judicial texts to uncover...