Other Sheep - Multicultural Ministries with Sexual Minorities

Annotated
Bibliography

on this page...

Historical
Articles
from Ancient to
Contemporary

Historical Articles: From Ancient to Contemporary

John A. Alford, "The Grammatical Metaphor: A Survey of its Use in the Mideel Ages", Speculum, vol.
57 (1982), pp. 728-60
Alford examines the use of the grammatical metaphors as analogies for speaking about sexuality
and sexual deviancy.

John Boswell, Rediscovering Gay History : Archetypes of Gay Love in Christian History, London :
Gay Christian Movement, 1982.
Anticipates his book on same-sex unions.

John Boswell, "Revolutions, Universals, Categories", in Hidden From History, ed. by Martin
Duberman, Martha Vincus & George Chauncey, New York, NAL, 1989, pp. 17-36.
Boswell answers the charges of a historical essentialism in his historical research.

John Boswell, "Homosexuality and Religious Life: A Historical Approach," in Homosexuality in the
Priesthood and the Religious Life, ed. by Jeannine Gramick, New York, Crossroad, 1989, pp. 3-20.
Discusses the issue of same-attraction in the medieval priesthood and religious life.

John Boswell, "Sexual Categories, Sexual Universals: An Interview with John Boswell", Christopher
Street, # 151, 1990, pp. 23-40.
Boswell speaks about the controversies over his research.

James. Brundage, "Let Me Count the Ways: Canonists and Theologians Contemplate Coital
Positions", Journal of Medieval History 10:2 (1984), pp. 81-93
Medieval Christian moralists not only considered homoerotic acts unnatural but any deviance from
what we call the "missionary" coital position.

Vern L. Bullough, "Byzantium and Eastern Orthodox Christianity", in Sexual Variance in Society and
History, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976, pp, 317-346
Bullough covers sexual variance within Byzantium.

Vern L. Bullough, "Transvestites in the Middle Ages", American Journal of Sociology, 79 (1974),
1381-94
Bullough covers female to male transvestite saints.

Elizabeth Castelli, "`I Will Make Mary Male': Pieties of the Body and Gender: Transformation of
Christian Women in Late Antiquity", Body Guards: The Cultural politics of Gender Ambiguity, ed. by
Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub, New York, Routledge, 1991, pp. 29-39
Castelli provides a contextual reading of the early phenomenon of females becoming males in early
Christianity.

Wayne Dynes, "Christianity and the Politics of Sex", in Homosexuality, Intolerance and Christianity, A
Critical Examination, ed. by Warren Johansson et al., New York, Scholarship Committee, Gay
Academic Union, 1981.
Dynes defines Christianity as the enemy of gays/lesbians.

Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, "People of the Body: The Problem of the Body for the People of the Book",
Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 2, # 1, 1991, pp. 1-24.
Eilberg-Schwartz undertakes an exploration of the body and sexuality within the biblical
tradition.

Catai Galatariotou, "Byzantine Ktetorika Typika: A Comparative Study", Revue des etudes byzantins,
vol. 45, 1987, pp. 77- 138
Galatariotou covers Byzantine monastic homosexuality. A long standing tradition like its
Roman Catholic counterpart.

Simon Gaunt, "Straight Minds/ Queer Wishes in Old french Hagiography; La Vie de Sainte
Euphrosine," in Premodern Sexualities, ed. by Louise Fradenburg & Carla Freccero, New York,
Routledge, 1996. pp. 155-173.
Gaunt discovers queerness in a female transvestite saint and the homoerotic desires incited in male
monks.

Michael Goodich, "Sodomy in Ecclesiastical Law and Theory", Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 1, # 3,
1976, pp. 427-434.
Examines at penitentials, patristic writings, canons, and episcopal instructions to the
clergy.

Pierre Hurteau, "Catholic Moral Discourse on Male Sodomy and Masturbation in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries", Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 4, # 1, 1993, pp. 1-32.
No surprises on the Catholic position.

David E. Greenberg & M.H. Bystrin, "Christian Intolerance of Homosexuality", American Journal of
Sociology, vol. 88, 1982, pp. 515-548.
Good sociological article on Christian intolerance.

Gerald Herman, "The `Sin against Nature' and its Echos in Medieval French Literature", Annuale
Medievale, vol. 17, 1976, pp. 70-87.
Herman analyzes the theme of homoeroticism in early French literature.

David Hillard, "UnEnglish and Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism and Homosexuality", Victorian Studies, vol.
25, 1982, pp. 181-210.
Hillard addresses homosexuality in the Anglo-Catholic movement of the Church of England.

Harvey Kuster & Raymond J. Cormier, "Old Views and New Trends: Observations on the Problem of
Homosexuality in the Middle Ages", Studii Medievali, vol. 25, # 2, 1985.
A resume of work on homoerotic desire in the European middle ages.

Kathy Lavezzo, "Sobs and Sighs between Women: The Homoerotics of Compassion in The Book of
Margery Kempe," in Premodern Sexualities, ed. by Louise Fradenburg & Carla Freccero, New York,
Routledge, 1996. pp. 175-198.
Levazzo suggests that Kempe's extravagant weeping over the body of Christ may be grounded in
female homoeroticism.

Walter Horn, & Ernest Born, The Plan of St. Gall, Vol. I-III, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1979.
These volumes examine Benedictin efforts to prevent sexual contacts with young monks.

Warren Johansson, "Ex parte Themis: The Historic Guilt of the Christian Church", in Warren
Johansson et al., Homosexuality, Intolerance and Christianity, A Critical Examination, New York,
Scholarship Committee, Gay Academic Union, 1981.
The Gay Academic Union identified Christianity as the homophobic oppressor, viewing Boswell's
work as exonerating the Church. Johansson is a good scholar but allows his ideological premises to
blind to the possibility of a far more pluralistic history.

Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Johnson disccues chasitity and the rare occurences of lesbianism among medieval nuns.

John Lauritsen, "Culpa Ecclesiae: Boswell's Dilemma", in Homosexuality, Intolerance and Christianity:
A Critical Examination, New York: Scholarship Committe, Gay Academic Union, 1981.
Lauritsen attacks Boswell's theory that the Church did not create hatred of gays and
maintains that the Church was a cultural leader in persecuting gays.

H.C. Lea, "Unnatural Crime", in A History of the Inquisition in Spain, Vol. I-IV, New York, Macmillan,
1922.
Volume IV finds persons burned at the stake for their homoerotic desires.

Eve Levin, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slaves, 900-1700, Ithaca, Cornell University
Press, 1989.
Levin discusses homosexuality as a problem and manuscripts about a Slavic blood brotherhood.
Boswell arrrived at different conclusions about these ceremonies between the same-sex.

E. Annn Matter, "Discourses of Desire: Sexuality and Christian Women's Visionary Narratives," in
Homosexuality and Religion, ed. by Richard Hasbany, New York, Harrington Park Press, 1989, pp.
119-132.
Article compares two Italian women, Benedetta Carlini and Maria Domitilla. Matter challenges the
category of "lesbian nun" and asserts that sexuality revolved around the organic connection
between the spiritual and the sensual.

Brian P. McGuire, Brian P, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx, New York, Crossroad, 1994.
McGuire acknowledges Aelred's homoeroticism.

Mary Elizabeth Perry, "The `Neferious Sin" in Early Modern Seville" in Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma,
Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 16, # 1/2, 1988, pp. 67-90.
Perry details the Spanish Inquisition's persecution of sodomy.

Amy Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against
Love Between Men", Journal of History of Sexuality, vol. 3, # 4, 1993, pp. 523-573.
A significant attack on the social constructionist thesis that "homosexuality" is an irrelevant category
for the Roman past. Good up to date bibliography on the issues.

Kathryn Ringrose, "Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium", in Third Sex, Third
Gender, ed. by Gilbert Herdt, New York, Zone Books, 1994, pp. 85-110.
Ringrose explores the the liminal regions of gender with Byzantine eunuchs.

Douglass Roby, "Early Medieval Attitudes to Homosexuality", Gai Saber, vol. 1, 1977, pp. 67-79
Roby gives a brief but good account on medieval Christian attitutdes towards homoerotic behaviors.

Kenneth C. Russell, "Aelred, the Gay Abbot of Rievaulx", Studia Mystica, vol. 5, # 4, 1982, pp. 51-64
Russell examines the life of the Cistercian abbot who promoted homoerotic love within the monastery

Joyce E. Salisbury, "The Latin Doctors of the Church on Sexuality", Journal of Medical History vol.
12, # 4, 1986 , pp. 279-290.
Augustine set a pattern of normative celibacy for the Christian elite.

James M Saslow, "The Tenderest Lover: Saint Sebastian in Renaissance Painting: A proposed
Iconology for North Italian Art, 1450-1550", Gai Saber, vol. 1, # 1, 1977, pp. 58-66.
Saslow examines Saint Sebastian, a favorite saint for men.

M.M. Sheehan, "Christianity and Homosexuality", Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 33, 1982, pp.
438-446
Overview of the recent historical work on Christian attitudes towards homosexuality.

Renee Neu Watkins, "Mythology as Code: Lapo da Castiglionchio's View of Homosexuality and
Materialism at the Curia", Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 53, # 1, 1992, pp. 138-144.
Castiglionchio wrote a dialogue defending the service of the Pope and life at the Roman Curia with
references to homoeroticism. Some things never change.

David F. Wright, "Early Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality," Studica Patristica, vol. 18, # 2, 1989,
pp. 329-334.
Wright challenges Boswell's reading of early Christian attitudes.