Scholar who mixes love of ancient history with alternative rock wins position
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – For T. Corey Brennan, pursuing ancient Roman studies and playing rock guitar in an alternative band are not mutually exclusive interests.Brennan, an associate professor and chair of Rutgers University’s Classics Department and former guitarist for The Lemonheads, just added another honor to his day job. He has been appointed to a three-year term as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome.
His appointment begins July 1. He succeeds Professor Thomas A.J. McGinn of Vanderbilt University and will be the first Rutgers professor to hold the Mellon Professorship.
“This appointment is a wonderful and well-deserved honor for Corey, and recognition of his extraordinary accomplishments as a teacher and scholar,” said Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences Executive Dean Douglas Greenberg. “All of Corey’s colleagues here, and in his field, know how much the School of Classical Studies will benefit from having such a scholar and leader at its helm for the next three years.”
Established in 1894 and chartered by an act of Congress in 1905, the American Academy in Rome is one of the leading American overseas centers for independent study and advanced research in the arts and humanities. Each year, through a national competition, the academy awards its Rome Prize to 30 individual artists and scholars to study at the academy. As professor- in-charge, Brennan will help advance the work of the Rome Prize winners, organize and preside over lectures and conferences, and coordinate and supervise the use of the Academy’s varied resources and programs.
“I am thrilled that Corey Brennan will join us in Rome. I know that with his energy, experience, intelligence and love of the Academy, he will be able to build on the achievements of Professor Tom McGinn,” said Columbia University classicist and Academy Director Vircillo Franklin, to whom the Mellon professor reports.
Brennan joined Rutgers in 2000, after teaching for a decade at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, the department has undergone a revival, doubling both its faculty and students. The department has six faculty members and offers courses in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. During the 2007-08 school year, 1,271 students registered for courses and 45 declared majors in Classics.
Besides his love of the classics and ancient history, Brennan also has been a guitarist and songwriter in several bands, including the alternative rock band, The Lemonheads, whose hits included Luka. He continues to play guitar with Superfetazione, a Roman rock band he co-founded 20 years ago.
On the antiquity side, Brennan also co-founded the Ancient Historians’ Colloquium of the Atlantic States, served as the editor of the American Journal of Ancient History since 2001, and has contributed to the Times Literary Supplement and Book Review of The New York Times.
“I really am humbled to be chosen for this position, which has so much history behind it; the list of the previous professors-in-charge reads very much like the story of Roman studies in America. My Rutgers colleagues and administration have been wonderfully supportive in all this,” Brennan said.
A native of Scranton, Pa., Brennan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1981. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Oxford and a master’s, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. Brennan held a pre-doctoral fellowship at the American Academy in Rome from 1987 to 1988, and presently serves as president of its Society of Fellows, an alumni group comprised of Rome Prize winners, residents and affiliates.
His scholarly publications include a two-volume work, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford 2000), an in-depth study of Rome’s second most important regular magistracy after the consulship.
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