is the understanding that men have the authority to exchange women among one another in order to form a "homosocial contract". Nero analyzes Du Bois's discussion on the Teutonic and Submissive Man to conclude that such a contract would lead to a "round and full development" to produce a "great civilization". However, Nero is concerned with violence and the "rigid policing of sexual identity categories at the turn of the century", which ultimately made such a homosocial, biracial contract impossible. In Charles I. Nero's "Queering the Souls of Black Folk", Nero marks "Of the Coming of John" as a central chapter that demonstrates his queer reading of Souls. Nero argues that John Jones's absence of masculinity is a sign of his queerness and that the killing of his "double" represents Du Bois's disillusionment with the idea that a biracial and homosocial society can exist. Nero contends that Du Bois's illustration of the gulf between the two Johns is complicated by the impossibility of biracial male union, which suggests that John's acculturation in the metropole (Johnstown in Du Bois's narrative)—alongside lessons in Victorian comportment and a "queer" intellectualism—is also an ideological induction into male sexual panic, or the hegemony of a racializing gender order at the turn of the twentieth century. Nero's interpretation of Jennie's assault (and her subsequent disappearance from the text) chafes against earlier interpretations that allege John Jones's murder of John Henderson as indebted to a tradition of white southern chivalry. Instead, Nero marshals Signithia Fordham's terminology of "gender integrity" to delimit how the murder of John Henderson resolves the challenge to John Jones's masculinity, going on to point out that "Du Bois [is] writing about race… [and] against a culture that turns him queer by excluding him from public heterosexuality" (Nero 271). Cultural and religious criticism Du Bois had transdisciplinary training and he provided a historical context for black religion and culture. His concept of "double-consciousness" and other concepts from Souls have been highly influential on other scholars in their interpretations of black culture and religion. Cheryl Sanders, a professor of Christian ethics at Howard University School of Divinity, lists a "who's who" of Du Bois progeny in her scholarly work, including Paul Gilroy, C. Eric Lincoln, Lawrence Mamiya, Peter Paris, Emilie Townes and Cornel West. These are some of the scholars who take up themes or concepts found in Souls for their own work in religious