Traces of the Silk Road in Northwest Europe
Prof Susan Whitfield,
University of East Anglia
Date: 18th of March 2026
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
We think of the Silk Roads as a luxury trade route from East Asia to markets such as Damascus in Syria. But there is much more to this story. This trade involved diplomatic, religious and other contacts between different cultures as far as Europe.
About the speaker:
Professor Susan Whitfield is a leading scholar of the Silk Road, specializing in its historiography, art, and cultural exchange, having previously curated the British Library’s International Dunhuang Project (IDP) and authoring numerous influential books on the subject. Her research now focuses on expanding the understanding of Silk Road interactions and their impact on art and belief, as seen in her current project, Nara to Norwich. She is a Professor of Silk Road Studies at the University of East Anglia and lectures and writes widely on the topic for diverse audiences worldwide.
OTHER EVENTS
The Search for American Vikings: Untangling Myth from Reality (Preceded by AGM)
Date:15th of Ocotober 2025
Time: 20:00 (19:35 for AGM)
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Martyn Whittock, Independent Researcher and Author
For a thousand years, Norse sagas (written in 13th-century Iceland) claimed that Vikings migrated from Greenland to reach a land to the West called ‘Vinland.’ It was, and is, a claim that stimulates the imagination and controversy, for it insists that Vikings influenced lands very far from Scandinavia. In this talk – based on my book American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America – I explore the evidence for this in the literary sources and archaeology (most notably on Newfoundland); claims regarding runestones ‘discovered’ in the USA; and the way this idea of ‘Vinland Vikings’ has fed into the cultural DNA of North America and especially the USA. In recent times that has led to their co-option by the US far-right as seen in the ‘Unite the Right’ rally at Charlottesville (2017) and on January 6th at the US Capitol. This talk will explore both the evidence for Norse settlement in North America and why it became (and remains) so important in the ‘deep story’ of contested US identities.
The African Emperor: The Life and Times of Septimius Severus
Date: 19th of November 2025
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Dr Simon Elliott, Managing Director, Sentinel Communications
Septimius Severus was Rome’s black emperor. Born in the blistering heat of a North African spring in Leptis Magna, AD 145, he died in the freezing cold of a northern British winter in York in AD 211. A giant of an emperor, whose career can be counted in superlatives, Severus was in power at the height of Rome’s might. He led the largest army to ever campaign in Britain, comprising 50,000 men, part of a Roman military establishment which peaked at 33 legions under his rule.
The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis
Date: 17th of December 2025
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Prof Richard Whatmore, School of History, University of St Andrews
The Enlightenment is popularly seen as the Age of Reason, a key moment in human history when ideals such as freedom, progress, natural rights and constitutional government prevailed. In this radical re-evaluation, historian Richard Whatmore shows why, for many at its centre, the Enlightenment was a profound failure.