Modernism's Weird Sisters: A Review of Christine Coffman's Insane Passions

This is a review of Christine Coffman's 2006 study of the figuration of lesbianism in twentieth century literature and social thought, Insane Passions: Lesbianism and Psychosis in Fiction and Film. The book examines texts such as André Breton's Nadja, Jacques Lacan's early essays in the art journal Minotaure, Djuna Barnes's Nightwood, and H.D.'s autobiographical prose, and Coffman studies how the psychotic lesbian emerges as a figure within modernist thought. The book's principal contribution to modernist studies lies in studying, rather than simply deploying, psychoanalysis and queer theory within the context of modernist literature and film.