Private Affairs

In

Private Affairs , Phillip Brian Harper explores the social and cultural significance of the private, proposing that, far from a universal right, privacy is limited by one's racial-and sexual-minority status. Ranging across cinema, literature, sculpture, and lived encounters-from Rodin's

The Kiss

to Jenny Livingston's

Paris is Burning - Private Affairs

demonstrates how the very concept of privacy creates personal and sociopolitical hierarchies in contemporary America.