Talk:John Boswell

message: It is a bit misleading calling someone a "gay historian", a phrase open to two meanings. John was in fact a historian who was gay, or, with the other meaning, a historian who specialised in writing on the history of homosexuality. Writing "gay historian" makes it sound as though though historians are categorised by gender and orientation. Would we write that John Cornwell is a "straight historian" or "Ruth Dudley Edwards a "woman historian"? If the term "gay historian" refers to his sexuality then it is mischevious. Historians, no more than anyone else, are not categorised by sexual orientation, gender, hair colour, height or any other personal characteristics. If it meant "historian who wrote about gay issues and other topics" then it should be said that way. He didn't simply write about homosexuality. 87.192.19.61 20:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This sometimes-derogatory slang should not be in the article, but I don't know how to fix it, because I don't know if the human who inserted the word "queer" was simply of low intelligence and inserted the word of their own volition, or if "queer theorists" is actually a widely-used term for a specific group of people/stereotype/opinion/etc., in which case in should be put in quotes.                     ~Rayvn 08:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "Queer Theorists"

message: "an openly gay man cannot be accepted as a "disinterested" source"
:Because straight people are completely impartial on the subject of sexual orientation, because straight people have no sexual orientation, I suppose. Just like only white people should write black history. Really, Ed, I expected better from you. - montréalais
Well, I could claim that "disinterested" and "impartial" aren't exactly the same, but I'd rather just apologize. Sorry, I messed up the article. And I concede that "straight" people can be crooked, dishonest, selfish -- and did I mention devious, twisted and narrow? --Ed Poor
:To be fair to Ed, everyone reading the above quote should realize he meant that, "an openly gay man cannot be accepted as a 'disinterested' source [on gay history]."
:Still, this is a questionable statement. I would argue that the interest a gay man would have in this area is a plus, not a minus. Firstly because his "interests" are positive, for example increasing safety, and because otherwise how or why else would he be knowledgable in that area?
:The question is not does this create "interest" or bias, but does this create inaccuracies? For it certainly does create bias (for example, in California being honest about one's romantic tendancies, "coming out", is often interpreted by the courts as a political statement itself). The idea, though, that a historian at Yale would make up facts or promote false interpretations of those facts in order to advance, in the short term, a cause so personally important, in the long term, seems ridiculous. Hyacinth 00:28, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Interest

message: Aren't there any references to Boswell as an historic figure, rather than diatribes supporting or attacking his research?
:Please sign questions and comments, thanks. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages for more information. Hyacinth 00:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I cut the following text:  
 Boswell was an unusual kind of historian. Like Fernand Braudel, he didn't rest with official accounts and chronicles, which tend to document the deeds of soldiers, kings, and prelates in detail but say nothing about the millions of ordinary men and women who make their deeds possible. Both scholars probed more obscure sources to tell the tale of the "forgotten millions." Braudel was interested in the economic life of Europe, about which little was recorded; Boswell focused on personal relations, about which less was recorded.
It's true that Boswell and Braudel both used sources beyond official accounts and chronicles, but so do most historians today. Boswell was a great scholar, as Braudel was, but there is no particular affinity or resemblance between them. Llajwa 20:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Braudel discussion cut 

message: I have included a short section on subsequent criticisms of Boswell's work by medievalists and queer theorists, who habitually take Boswell as an example of egregious ahistorical essentialism. I haven't had the opportunity to add references, but I would welcome anyone who can to expand it and do so (especially those who have had a chance to read the recently-published book from Chicago on the 'Boswell thesis'). 131.111.220.6 (talk) 01:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms of Boswell 

message: I do not see any reason to put in the lead his AIDS'related death. This is not relevant for his biography. For example in the articles about Michael Foucault or Nureyev there is nothing about their death in the lead.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.40.145.66 (talk) 05:29, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  AIDS death in the lead 

message: I am moving the following uncited material, which was first fact tagged back in May 2014, from the article to this talk page until it can be properly supported with citations per WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:IRS, WP:CS, et al. Nightscream (talk) 15:35, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Uncited material in need of citations

message: Is it appropriate to have such a long list of people who were in the History Department at Yale along with John Boswell??  Is this to be taken to imply approval by these scholars of his work?  Or is it just showing off?  Why isn't Ramsay Macmullen included?  He was a Roman historian.  --Vicedomino (talk) 05:55, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Yale Colleagues

message: ‎The Schulman quote under the last bullet point of this section is an innacurate and inadequately sourced representation of events surrounding the formation of CLAGS. Schulman relies on the hearsay of a single source, Martin Duberman, which directly contradicts material found in the extant minutes of CLAGS meetings and related correspondence between Boswell, Duberman, and other members, all of which are available for consultation in the Boswell collection of the Yale Archives. Lfranner (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legacy: information on CLAGS formation 

message: Under the "Legacy" section: Regarding the final sentence of Schulman's quote: it is unclear what is being referenced by 'social system.' This should be clarified and contextualized. Boswell received unreserved support from Yale itself as one of its first openly gay faculty members, and far from being abandoned after his AIDS diagnosis, was granted extraordinary privileges such as extended hospitalization at the Infirmary, as a measure of the university administration's esteem. Lfranner (talk) 01:56, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boswell and Yale