2026 Syme Lecture

Dr J Alison Rosenblitt delivers the 2026 Syme Lecture on writing history as literature, from Syme's Roman Revolution to Orwell, Cicero and remembering the weather.

Dr J Alison Rosenblitt, Supernumerary Fellow, delivers the 2026 Syme Lecture, titled 'The Arguments of Winter: writing history as literature, remembering the weather'. She discusses Sir Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution (1939) as history written as a literary work, its reflection in George Orwell's writing, and what it means to write history as literature, drawing also on Yiyun Li and Kazuo Ishiguro and on the life of Cicero and Rome in the 50s BCE. The talk also considers feelings towards people of the past, including through remembering the weather. A content note advises that, while suicide is not the topic, an awareness of suicide is present in the talk's texture via Yiyun Li's writing.