Environmental Catastrophe, the Fall of Rome, and the Rise
of Christianity
with Dr. Travis Proctor
Start LearningDid environmental disaster cause the collapse of the world’s great empire and the rise of its newest world religion?
This lecture explores how some historians, as popularized in Kyle Harper's influential book The Fate of Rome, have suspected that environmental change brought about the demise of the Roman empire and, perhaps, the emergence of Christianity as the new dominant religion in the ancient Mediterranean.
Attendees will dive deep into the latest scholarship on environmental disasters in the ancient world, with a focus on how scholars have come to think these catastrophes may have reshaped world history.
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Your Instructor
Dr. Travis Proctor
A first-generation college graduate and scholar of the bible and early Christianity, Travis Proctor received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill, specializing in ancient Mediterranean religions. His teaching and research draw from interdisciplinary fields like religious studies, environmental history, animal studies, space & material culture, and ritual studies.
His first book, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture (Oxford University Press), explored how early Christian theorizations of demonic bodies influenced ancient understandings of cosmic “ecosystems,” and how such historical perspectives may inform contemporary environmental ethics.
His work has appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Harvard Theological Review, and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, as well as public venues including Bible Odyssey, Religion for Breakfast, Religion Dispatches, The Bart Ehrman Blog, and the “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” podcast.
He lives in Ohio and enjoys hiking outdoors, a good round of disc golf, and watching prestige television shows several years after they were popular.
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