RENNER HOME PAGE
[updated 28 May 2006]
Timothy Renner, Professor of Classics and General
Humanities
and Director, Institute for the Humanities,
Montclair State University
Professional organizations
Go to the Dept. of Classics
& General Humanities Home Page
Addresses:
Department. of Classics and General Humanities
Montclair State University
Upper Montclair, N.J. 07043
U.S.A.
Telephone 973-655-7420
Internet: rennert@mail.montclair.edu
Education: B.A. Yale University; M.A., Ph.D. The University of Michigan
Research interests:
Social history in the Roman world. Literary and documentary
papyrology. Mediterranean
archaeological studies.
Most of my published research concerns the Greek texts, the literary and
subliterary culture, and the society of Greco-Roman Egypt. My greatest
depth of experience is in editing papyri for publication and in criticizing
existing editions. My more thematically-based research in the study
of Greco-Roman Egypt currently focuses on texts on grammar and rhetoric in
circulation and on the reuse of documentary rolls for literary or technical
texts. I serve as one of the three editors of the Bulletin of the
American Society of Papyrologists, a peer-reviewed journal with an
international advisory board the scope of which we as editors have recently
sought to broaden beyond traditional text-based papyrology to include studies in
Coptic and Demotic texts as well as those concerning the documents, the
religions, and the cultures of Egypt and surrounding regions from the age of
Alexander through the early Arab period. Within the compass of the wider
Roman world, I am preparing a study of Roman imperial slaves and their vicarii
with special reference to Egypt and Italy.
Teaching and curriculum development interests:
For some years I have been involved with interdisciplinary humanities
teaching and curriculum development, where I have a special interest in the
cultural importance of traditions and in the evolution and function of
representations of the past. I periodically teach a course--developed
originally with my colleagues David Kelly and Victoria Tietze Larson--on
eighteenth-, ninteenth-, and twentieth-century American culture's uses of the Greco-Roman past as model and
antimodel, and I am currently helping to design an M.A. program in General
Humanities. I am the director of Montclair State's Institute for the
Humanities, which sponsors extensive outreach programs to high school students
and teachers as part of its efforts to promote interdisciplinary humanities
studies. I have a particular interest, as well, in the history of archaeology as a
discipline, in the interrelations and oppositions of anthropologically based
archaeology and the text-driven archaeology typically associated with classical
studies, and in the ways that developments in archaeological theory are related
to theoretical developments in the humanities and social sciences more
generally. However, with some frequency I teach Latin at all levels, where
I am especially interested in historical prose.
Positions in Professional
Organizations:
Editor (with Peter Van Minnen, University of Cincinnati,
Editor-in-Chief, and John Whitehorne, University of Queensland), Bulletin
of the American Society of Papyrologists
To go to the American Society of Papyrologists homepage,
click here
To go to the homepage of the Association
Internationale de Papyrologues, click here
New Jersey Colleges Representative, Executive Board of the
New Jersey Classical Association
Chair, Subcommittee on Diversity, National Committee for Latin and Greek (NCOLG), The American Classical League
Past President of The American Society of Papyrologists and of The Classical Association of the Atlantic States
FALL SEMESTER 2006 COURSES:
GNHU 384-01 Introduction to Roman Law
TuTh
10:00-11:15 A.M.
This
course examines, first, the origin and growth of the Roman legal system and
Roman legal thought during the Republic and the Empire, with special emphasis on
the “Classical” period of the law from the age of Cicero to the third
century, together with how selected components of Classical Roman law form
important bases of one of the major world legal traditions today. We will then
consider, using primary texts in translation and a case-study approach, how
Classical Roman law handles several topics which are extremely important for
every legal system in a complex society—especially family law (“the law of
persons”) and torts (“delicts”).
LATN 121-01 Intermediate Latin I
TuTh 1:00-2:15
P.M.
This course reviews and completes the study of basic grammar and moves the
student toward the reading of more complex texts, including passages of
classical Roman literature which provide preparation for more
advanced level Latin study.
UPCOMING COURSES, SPRING 2007:
GNHU 282-01/HIST 282-01 Roman Civilization
TuTh
8:30-9:45
A.M.
An introduction to the political, social, economic, and cultural
history of the Roman world from the Regal period of Roman tradition (eighth
century B.C.E.) to the age of Justinian (6th century C.E.), this Roman history
survey seeks to examine both to the more traditionally studied aspects of Roman history,
such as political or military personalities and events seen through the eyes of
elite culture, and to types of evidence, such as archaeological material, which
shed light on long-term cultural developments and on a wider spectrum of society
than do traditionally utilized sources of evidence such as literary writers or
public art and architecture.
LATN 121-01
Intermediate Latin I
TuTh 10:00-11:15 A.M.
This course reviews and completes the study of basic grammar and moves the
student toward the reading of more complex texts, including passages of
classical Roman literature which provide preparation for more
advanced level Latin study.
RECENTLY TAUGHT COURSES - SPRING SEMESTER 2006:
GNHU 181
Introduction to Classical Archaeology
LATN 121 Intermediate Latin I
LATN 202 Latin Literature of the Silver Age
RECENTLY TAUGHT COURSES - FALL SEMESTER 2005:
GNHU/HIST 332 Selected Topics in Ancient
History: The Roman Republic
GNHU/HIST 282 Roman Civilization