Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America

Examining this interchange between poetry and law, Nelson produces a rhetorical analysis of privacy. She provides close readings of the confessional poetry of Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath, along with an examination of the Supreme Court's shifting definitions of privacy. The invention of the computer, the development of surveillance technology, and even the increasing popularity of open architectural plans are all part of the story.

Deborah Nelson is assistant professor of English and gender studies at the University of Chicago.