The course consists of thirteen seminars that aim to provide a comprehensive introduction to the historical study of sex work in the past from a historical perspective. The objectives of the course are:
(a) to examine the social and institutional definitions of prostitution, the legal regimes that framed and shaped it, and the range of state policies for managing prostitution in different national contexts;
(b) to analyse policing strategies for addressing prostitution and their connections with medical practices adopted over time by health professionals, social workers, or other institutions (e.g. the Church); and
(c) to explore the fragments of voices and experiences of individuals involved in practices of prostitution and its suppression, investigating their impact on society as a whole and broader issues of social and cultural history.
Particular emphasis is placed on problems of sources, methodological approaches, and research ethics in the historical study of this subject. Within this framework, students will become familiar with the domestic landscape of sources and scholarship in the field, including contributions from related disciplines (such as anthropology and law). Half of the seminars focus on the Greek case, while the remainder examine countries primarily in North-Western Europe and the Americas. In two of the seminars, colleagues with research experience on the history of prostitution from a historical and/or anthropological perspective will be invited to participate in the course.
The course is assessed through an oral presentation and a written assignment.
THEMATIC UNITS
- Definition of prostitution/sex work: problems of terminology and language
- Prostitution: source-related and methodological challenges of a subfield
- Prostitution in the 19th century: social and institutional transformations
- The Ionian State as a case study of prostitution (+ invited researcher)
- Prostitution, racialisation, and migration in France and Germany (+ i.r.)
- Gender, race, and class: prostitution in Thessaloniki
- The activities of the Morals Police (Vice Squad)
- Male prostitution within and beyond Greece: a comparative perspective
- Intermediary actors (physicians, social workers, the Church)
- Student oral presentations of research studies
- Connections I: women’s history and labour
- Connections II: oral history, anthropological approaches, and subaltern voices
- Final oral presentations of student papers
Learning outcomes: Upon successful completion of the course, students will have acquired an in-depth knowledge of the history of prostitution in Greece and Europe, familiarity with primary sources, methodological issues, and the relevant Greek and international literature, as well as the ability to critically analyse issues related to the regulation and management of prostitution from a historical perspective.
General Competences :
Search for, analysis and synthesis of data and information, with the use of the appropriate technologies
Production of free, creative, and inductive thinking.
Respect for diversity and multiculturalism.
Demonstrate social, professional and ethical responsility and sensitivity to gender issues
Develop skills in both teamwork and independent work.
Exercise critical and self-critical thinking.
Generate new research ideas.
Suggested bibliography:
- Attwood, N. (2015) The Prostitute’s Body: Rewriting Prostitution in Victorian Britain. London: Routledge.
- Avdela, E. (2013) Neoi en kindyno: epithrisi, anamorfosi kai dikaiosyni anilikon meta ton polemo [Youth at risk: juvenile surveillance, reformation and justice after the war]. Athens: Polis.
- Blanchard, M. (2021) ‘Marie Piquemal, the “Colonial Madam”: Brothel Prostitution, Migration, and the Making of Whiteness in Interwar Dakar’, Journal of Women’s History, 33(4), pp. 88-112.
- Clement, E. (2002) ‘Courtship, Consumption, and Commerce: Sexual Economies in the Post-World War I Urban North’, Journal of Social History, 36(1), pp. 39-66.
- Fotakis, A. (2022) Astynomia Poleon: Ta prota vimata stin Ellada tou Mesopolemou [City Police: The first steps in interwar Greece]. Athens: Themelio.
- Garon, S. (1993) ‘The World’s Oldest Debate? Prostitution and the State in Modern Japan’, The American Historical Review, 98(3), pp. 710-732. • Gilfoyle, T. J. (1992) City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
- Laite, J. (2012) ‘Selling Sex: Women, Work and Prostitution’, in Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1960. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Laite, J., Pliley, J. and Rodriguez-Garcia, M. (2022) ‘Introduction: prostitution in twentieth century Europe’, Journal of Social History / Cultural and Social History, 29(2), pp. 115–124.
- Levine, P. (2003) Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. London: Routledge.
- Mahood, L. (1990) The Magdalenes: Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge.
- Rappaport, H. (2010) ‘The FBI’s White Slave Division: The Creation of a National Regulatory Regime to Police Prostitutes in the United States, 1910-1918’, Journal of Social History, 44(2), pp. 435–455.
- Rosen, R. (1982) The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Soderlund, G. (2005) ‘The Rhetoric of Regulation: Prostitution, Anti-Vice Activism, and the History of Feminist Sex Wars’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 31(1), pp. 65-87.
- Walkowitz, J. R. (1980) Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Weeks, J. (2020) Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800. 5th edn. London: Routledge.
- White, L. (1990) The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Yannakopoulos, K. (2024) Andrikes omoerotikes scheseis sti metapolemiki Ellada [Male homoerotic relationships in postwar Greece]. Thessaloniki: Psifides.
Related academic journals:
- History Workshop Journal
- Journal of the History of Sexuality
- Gender & History
- Journal of Women’s History
