I study the cultural, social and legal history of late imperial Russia and the Soviet Union.  I draw particularly on theoretical and methodological perspectives coming out of the history of gender and sexuality, and this constellation of interests led me towards my current dissertation topic, 'Victims of the Social Temperament: Prostitution, Migration and the Traffic in Women in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, 1890-1935.'  Building on research conducted in Moscow, St Petersburg, Odessa, Geneva and London, this project examines the emergence of 'trafficking in women' as a specific crime in turn of the century Russia, and links this to the development of international humanitarian law, migratory regimes, and imperial governance.  I also work in the fields of comparative legal history, feminist and queer theory, and the cultural and intellectual history of the fin-de-siècle.  Contact me at phether at fas dot harvard dot edu