Join the Australian Academy of the Humanities, in partnership with the Holberg Prize, for a series of free, public lectures across Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, delivered by 2026 Holberg Prize Laureate, Professor Lyndal Roper FAHA FBA.
Lyndal Roper is Emeritus Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford. She was the first woman to hold the Regius Chair in History, and the first Australian. Roper’s most recent publication, Summer of Fire and Blood: A History of the German Peasants’ War (1524-6) details the greatest uprising in western Europe before the French Revolution (Winner, Cundill Prize 2025). She has written a biography of the reformer Martin Luther and has published on witchcraft and on gender and the German Reformation. She has lived and worked in Germany (where she held a Humboldt Fellowship and was Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg). She was a graduate of the University of Melbourne and holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Melbourne and the University of Basel. She is the Holberg Laureate 2026.
‘Dr Liar’ meets ‘The Devil Himself’: Martin Luther and Thomas Müntzer
Date: 23 September 2026
Time: 5.30 – 8.00pm AEST
Venue: Forgan Smith Building, Room 1-E109, The University of Queensland
Register: https://events.humanitix.com/aah-holberg-uq-lecture-2026
Join Lyndal as she explores Luther and Müntzer’s connection to the Peasants’ War and to one another; and how the afterlife of their enmity has shaped modern Germany.
History and Commemoration: Cycling the German Peasants’ War of 1525
Date: 25 September 2026
Time: 12.30 – 2.30pm AEST
Venue: The Law Foyer, Law School Building, The University of Sydney
Register: https://events.humanitix.com/aah-holberg-unisyd-lecture-2026
Join Lyndal as she reflects on the importance of experiencing history for her research and writing of Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War, Winner of the 2025 Cundill History Prize.
Brotherhood: Gender and the German Peasants’ War
1524-26
Date: 30 September 2026
Time: 5.30 – 7.30pm AEST
Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, The University of Melbourne
Register: https://events.humanitix.com/2026-academy-lecture
Join Lyndal as she delivers the 2026 Annual Academy Lecture, on how masculinity and brotherhood underpinned the German Peasants’ War; and how the roles and voices of women have been remembered.