Given that I'm posting this last installment on Boswell's Same-Sex Unions at the same time as I'm reading and writing up Foucault's History of Sexuality, I can't help but make some comparisons between the two presentations. In both cases, the authors are presenting a specific take on a field of historic study that is susceptible of widely varied interpretations. Boswell is a historian while Foucault is a philosopher, but both purport to be dealing with historic observations and practices in their analysis. Whatever one may think of Boswell's suggested conclusions, he backs them up with a vast array of primary documentation, often in the original languages as well as in translation. If you want to challenge his ideas, he provides you with the materials to start on your own analysis. Foucault barely cites his sources, rarely in a way that makes it easy to follow up on where his ideas are coming from. Both men (and I emphasize men) purport to be addressing general human experiences, but in fact are narrowly concerned with the experiences of men, and typically of men's experiences in contexts where women are irrelevant or are mere props to the male experience. Boswell acknowledges this and offers apologies. Foucault doesn't quite seem to realize that this might be a problem. On (re)reading these texts, it's easy to see why Boswell's work stirred up energetic discussion and strong reactions. It is less easy for me to see why people treat Foucault's work as ground-breaking and of vast importance to the field. Maybe this is because I'm solidly entrenched in a historian's view of the pursuit of "truth". Maybe isn't an irritated reaction to feeling that Foucault doesn't really seem to consider women to be a relevant part of the pursuit of "truth", either as active agents or as topics. That a masculine truth can be considered universal. Maybe I feel let down by the contrast in the shadow Foucault has cast across the history of sexualtiy and the apparent thinness of the substance. (Who knows, maybe volume 3 will be bursting with brilliant insights that will change my mind.)
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