Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America

Deborah Nelson

"[Nelson's] approach is often provocative and her research exhaustive." — Choice

"Rethinks confessional poetry in liberating ways. . . rich insights." — Modernism/ Modernity

"Nelson cogently details the emergence of women's privacy as an act of confession and examines confessional poets such as Plath and Sexton, whose personal self-disclosures anticipate the Supreme Court's emerging interpretation of prviacy as no longer available in silence." — Shelly Eversley, American Literature

"Refusing to simplify, she produces what might well be one of the most intellectually challenging and provactive views of lyric poetry in the postwar years" — Edward Brunner, Contemporary Literature

"Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America is an elegant and ambitious book. Nelson zeroes in on a term—privacy—that produces a great deal of anxiety in Americans. Her examples are fascinating, her scholarship impressive, and her argument compelling." — Diane Middlebrook, Stanford University and author of Anne Sexton: A Biography

"Nelson’s rereading of confessional poetry in dialogue with landmark Supreme Court privacy decisions is illuminating. She will convince readers that confessional poetry is not an out-of-touch art of the personal voice 'overheard,'but a poetry politically engaged in the debate about Cold War America’s self-definition." — Cynthia Hogue, director of the Stadler Poetry Center, Bucknell University

Related Subjects

• American Literature

Series

• Gender and Culture Series

About the Author

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

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