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October 28, 2024
Join the Department of History for our" History Speaker Series: Empire of Purity," a talk by Eva Payne of the University of Mississippi on October 28th at 4pm in room 255 of Old Horticulture.
Drawing on archives in Europe, the United States, and Latin America, Eva Payne’s new book ties the war on sexual vice to American imperial ambitions and a politicization of sexuality that continues to govern both domestic and international policy today. Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone of civilization and a basis of American exceptionalism. In her new book, Eva Payne traces the history of these efforts, showing how the policing and penalization of sexuality was used to justify American interventions around the world. Eva Payne describes how American reformers successfully pushed for international antitrafficking agreements that mirrored US laws, calling for states to criminalize prostitution and restrict migration, and harming the very women they claimed to protect.