Genres of Privacy in Postwar America

In the postwar period, Palmer Rampell explores how genre fiction reshaped the concept of the private person by engaging in debates about personal privacy related to issues such as abortion, police surveillance, and euthanasia. He pairs the right of privacy for heterosexual sex with queer and proto-feminist crime fiction, racialized police surveillance with Black crime fiction, Roe v. Wade with science fiction, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act with horror, and the right to die with westerns.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2022
Publisher: Stanford University Press

In his groundbreaking work,Palmer Rampell delves into the surprising impact of genre fiction on the concept of the private person in the postwar era. This exploration becomes particularly pertinent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's landmark 1965 decision establishing a constitutional right to privacy. Legal scholars, judges, and the general public alike grappled with the intricacies of this newfound right, seeking to understand its scope and implications.

Authors of genre fiction and film responded to this societal shift by reimagining their aliens, androids, and monsters as vehicles for engaging in thought-provoking debates about personal privacy. Through a meticulous combination of novels, films, original archival discoveries, historical and legal research, Rampell offers fresh interpretations of a diverse range of authors, including Patricia Highsmith, Dorothy B. Hughes, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Chester Himes, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, and many others.

The book skillfully weaves together a fascinating tapestry of connections, pairing the right of privacy for heterosexual sex with queer and proto-feminist crime fiction, racialized police surveillance at midcentury with Black crime fiction, Roe v. Wade (1973) with 1960s and 1970s science fiction, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) with horror, and the right to die with westerns. By exploring these interconnections, Rampell challenges our conventional understanding of fiction's role in representing fully realized private lives and proposes that we should appreciate a particular strand of genre fiction for its capacity to theorize the multifaceted concept of privacy.

Through his insightful analysis, Rampell invites us to reevaluate our perception of genre fiction and its potential to shape our understanding of privacy in the modern world. His work sheds light on the ways in which fiction can serve as a powerful tool for exploring complex social and ethical issues, and for challenging our assumptions about what it means to be private in a rapidly changing society.

Weight: 378g
Dimension: 152 x 229 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503631892