Tricia Starks, assistant professor of history at the University of Arkansas, will give a lecture, "Building the Body Soviet: Hygiene, Propaganda and the Revolutionary State," on Thursday, March 31, at 4 p.m. in K.J. Auditorium.
She will discuss the popularization of public health in the Soviet 1920s and
challenges prevailing assumptions of the nature of the Soviet state and its peculiarity. Rather than finding the insular development often assumed of Russia, it highlights commonalities with the West, especially in the use of science and the concept of progress to sanction state intervention. The Soviets do, however, have a different agenda for health and therefore are far more intrusive in the private
home and intimate decisions than any other state.
