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Few topics are more pressing to contemporary society as the right to privacy, in the face of both state and corporate and state surveillance. But the idea of a "right to privacy" has not always been with us. As E. L. Godkin put it in 1890, "Privacy is a distinctly modern product." Indeed, even 300 years ago, many of our own expectations of privacy would have been unheard of. This First-Year Seminar looks at the relation of privacy to modernity, through the lenses of literature, law, and social practices. How can works of art and thought from the past help us understand our own present?