“A book to die for! Theoretically sophisticated, yet written with clarity and elegance, Sapphic Slashers opens whole new worlds of understanding about sexuality, gender norms, racial injustice, violence, and the complex ways they are connected. Full of passion and intelligence, it made me think in fresh new ways about issues of great importance. Duggan’s is an amazing intellect.”—John D’Emilio, coauthor ... Read moreof Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America “Duggan seamlessly combines cultural theory with analyses of material conditions and demonstrates a breathtaking command of American cultural institutions—the mass press, the judicial systems, the medical literature. The book is not only smart about the interconnections between gender, sex, race, class, and nation, but is also lucid, making a good read.”—Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, author of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community “In this stunningly coherent and compelling account of the development of ‘American modernity,’ Duggan captures our interest with the sensational tale of lesbian love murder but then insists that we read this tale through turn-of-the-century debates over racial violence and against the backdrop of the medicalization of homosexuality. Sapphic Slashers has ‘classic’ written all over it.”—Judith Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity “What Duggan does in this original and moving book is take a murder case from 1890’s Memphis and make of it a prism through which to illuminate American modernity. Her method depends less on an account of the murder or of the judicial procedure that followed it than on an analysis of the many narratives—of lesbian love and sex and madness—that the case occasioned. Juxtaposing these narratives to narratives of lynching, Duggan produces a tour-de-force of historical understanding.”—Henry Abelove, Wesleyan University Show Less