Kyle Harper (Oklahoma)

This is an Archive of a Past Event

This lecture will explore how the intersection of ancient history and the natural sciences is illuminating the importance of environmental change in the ancient world. How will historians of late antiquity reckon with the growing evidence that climate change and pandemic disease were major shapers of the social, economic, and demographic history of the Mediterranean?

Kyle Harper is the Classics Department's second Early Career Visiting Fellow. He has been at the University of Oklahoma since 2007. His research focuses on the social and economic history of the Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages. His first book, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 received the Henry Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association. His current work investigates the impact of climate change, population, and disease in the first millennium.