“Voices from Roman Britain” - Professor Alex Mullen (Nottingham)

Professor Alex Mullen, Professor of Ancient History and Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham, will deliver the final talk in the 2024-2025 Bristol CA speaker series.

About the talk: What did life sound like in Roman Britain? What voices can we recover from the letters petitioning the gods, records of financial transactions, or notes with care packages sent to the frontier? Beginning in Roman Southwark and stopping at the sanctuaries of Bath and Uley and at the Roman fort at Vindolanda, Professor Alex Mullen will demonstrate the ways in which language can reveal diversity of experience across the province. Using written remains, archaeological data and historical context, this talk will shed light on the regionality, bilingualism and complexity of language spoken and written across Britannia. She will explore the extent of Latinization and investigate the puzzles within current scholarship, from what British Latin may have sounded like, to the assumed absence of written British Celtic.

About the speaker: Alex Mullen is Professor of Ancient History and Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She has published widely on issues of sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and social identity in the Iron Age and Roman worlds, utilising texts, epigraphy and archaeology. Her 2013 monograph, Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean: multilingualism and multiple identities in the Iron Age and Roman periods, was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize by the American Historical Association. Alex Mullen is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Royal Historical Society.

Event details

Venue: Peace Memorial Hall at Badminton School, Westbury Rd, Bristol BS9 3BA.

Start time: The talk will start at 7pm. Refreshments will be available from 6.45pm.

Ticket prices: The event is free for Bristol Classical Association members, university students, and school pupils. There will be a cost of £5 at the door for everyone else. Payment is not required at the point of reserving a ticket via Eventbrite.

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