Historical study is often framed as a ‘conversation’: between past and present, between reader and text, and between teacher and student. This lecture explores some of the implications of this metaphor in my own principal field of study – the end of the Roman Empire and the early medieval period – and considers the benefits and dangers of conceptualizing historical practice in this way.

Andy Merrills is Professor of Ancient History in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. His research has focused particularly on the history and archaeology of Northern Africa in the later Roman and post Roman period (c.300 - 700 CE), and on ancient and medieval geographical thought. He is the author of War, Rebellion and Epic in Byzantine North Africa (2023), Roman Geographies of the Nile (2017), The Vandals (with Richard Miles) (2010), and History and Geography in Late Antiquity (2005). He has taught at Leicester since 2005 and is probably best known among his students for singing in lectures and for gratuitous references to Star Wars (neither of these will feature in the present lecture).

Join us for a fascinating lecture where Professor Merrills will guide us through historical practice as ‘conversation’, particularly in the study of late antiquity and the end of the ancient world.