Jan. 12, 2005
Contact: Andrea Nash
Cal Poly Women's Studies
(805) 756-1525
Cal Poly Professor To Talk on White Slavery in Imperial
Russia
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Thomas Trice, Cal Poly assistant professor of history, will talk on “Pimps, Procurers and Innocent Maidens: White Slavery in Imperial Russia” from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 26.
The presentation, part of the university’s Women Studies Program Faculty Lecture Series, will be in the Science North Building, Room 202. The program is free and open to the public.
“At the turn of the 20th century, European social reformers expressed alarm at what they perceived as a precipitous rise in the international sex trade,” Trice explained. “Of particular concern were gangs of white slavers who operated out of the Black Sea port of Odessa.
“My talk draws on my examination of the contemporary Russian press and scholarly literature,” Trice said. “I will discuss ways in which Odessans devised a new social geography so that respectable citizens of modern, ‘depraved Odessa’ could avoid contact with vice and aid local police in driving out the villains behind it.”
Trice has been teaching at Cal Poly since 2002. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His research interests include modern Russian history, with a special emphasis on death and dying, sexuality and crime.
For more information, call Cal Poly’s Women's Studies office at 756-1525, e-mail womst@polymail.calpoly.edu, or go online to calpoly.edu/~womst.
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