Shredding the Classicson a Roman Holiday

ProfilesCLASS OF ' 8 1 1 It's hardto know just where to startwith Corey Brennan C'81.

Sure, you could go back acouple of thousand years tothe Roman Republic, or evenback to the ancient Greeks.After all, Brennan is a seriousscholar: associate professorand chair of classics atRutgers, and currently in themiddle of a three-year gig atthe American Academy inRome (AAR) as the Andrew W.Mellon Professor-in-Charge ofthe School of ClassicalStudies. In his spare time he'sbeen working on a book aboutthe elite women of RepublicanRome, which he describes as asort of sequel to his massive,two-volume The Praetorship inthe Roman Republic (OxfordUniversity Press, 200:1).

But if there's such a thing asa typical classics scholar, thenwe'll go out on a limb and saythat Brennan is not one ofthem. At least, you're not likelyto find many classicists whoseresumes include guitar-shred-ding stints with bands like theLemonheads and, more recent-ly, a Rome-based grunge bandcalled Superfetazione. (In oneYouTube video, the latter bandis tearing it up in a venue thatlooks like a CIA extraordinary-rendition chamber. "CoreyBrennan from Lemonheads

plays in his Roman side proj-ect Superfetazione," reads onecomment. "Corey Brennan isthe head of my Classicsdepartment at RutgersUniversity," says another."This is fantastic, he's so calmand demure in person!")

Nor will you find many clas-sics scholars who will digressat length on the musical con-nection between the Greekbouzouki and surf music.("The single most brilliantexample of re-branding wastaking bouzouki music andcalling it surf music," hesays.) But we're getting aheadof ourselves, which is easy todo with the kinetic Brennan.

By the time he got to Pennin the fall of 1977, Brennanalready had four years ofLatin and three of Greek

under his belt, courtesy ofthe Jesuit Scranton Prepara-tory School. His first week atPenn was "transformative,"as were the months andyears that followed.

"Whatever interest I had inclassics," he says, Penn's clas-sics department "really ani-mated and sparked it." Addingmore tinder to that fire was thePenn Museum ("which reallyblew me away") and the cours-es in classical archaeology.

Since Brennan has neverbothered much with sleep, hewas able to keep exploringhis musical passions as wellas his intellectual ones. Andhe hasn't stopped with any ofthem simply because he's3O-some years older. "Thethree [main] things havebeen DJing, playing guitar,and doing classics," he says,and while that's probably"one too many" serious pas-sions, he seems to be jug-gling them pretty well-eventhough he and his wife havethree small children withthem in Rome, which consti-tutes a juggling act in itself.

Long before he becameinvolved with the AAR,Brennan's family regularlyvacationed in the Val diChiana area of Tuscany,another reason that a careerin Latin literature andRoman history made sense.From Penn he went to Oxfordfor another BA, then toHarvard for a master's, thenback to Oxford for anothermaster's, then back toHarvard for his PhD in 1990.

Somewhere in there (1987-

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88, to be specific) Brennanwon the AAR's Rome PrizeFellowship, which brings upthe deep and longstandingrelationship between theUniversity and the AAR.George Bispham Page, thearchitect who designedFisher-Bennett Hall, was inresidence at the AAR in 1894,the year of its founding, andappears to have been one ofits first Fellows. ArchitectureProfessor Louis Kahn Ar'24Hon'yi was a resident at theAAR in 1951. Recent cross-pol-linators include C. Brian Rose,deputy director and chiefcurator of the Penn Museum(also the James B. PritchardProfessor of Archaeology andprofessor of classical studies),who serves as an AAR trustee;Laurie Olin, the practice pro-fessor of landscape architec-ture, who redesigned much ofthe AAR's grounds and gar-dens; and Wendy EvansJoseph C'77, founder of theeponymous architecture firm,School of Design overseer, andan AAR trustee. Over theyears, there have been morethan 200 AAR alumni fromPenn, says Brennan.

Now that he's back at theAAR, Brennan is in charge oforganizing and presidingover a broad range of lec-tures, conferences, andevents—and, in his words,"opening up off-accessRome" to AAR Fellows,whether it be the VaticanNecropolis, the Palazzo Far-nese, or an ancient aqueduct.

"I'm sort of interested ineverything," says Brennan,who adds that he's "the worstperson in the world" to tellpeople what they should seeif they're coming to Rome fora day or two. "Because I'llsay, 'What you have to see is...' and then tell them aboutwhatever is interesting me atthe moment. 'Oh, you have to

go see the Fascist mosaics atthe supermarket'-because inthe frozen-food aisle of thesupermarket near theOstiense Train Station,you're actually walking onFascist-era mosaics. That'sthe kind of thing that getsme really excited."

This past October, Brennanorganized the 1960 RomeOlympic Games Conference,which commemorated thegoth anniversary of the 1960Rome Summer Olympics andexamined their impact onthe urban fabric and socialstructure, even as the city ishoping to be chosen for arepeat performance in 2020.

"This year the focus hasbeen very much on the 2Othcentury," he says. "Next yearthe emphasis will be more onthe 17th century, BaroqueRome. Last year I focused onancient Republican andImperial Rome."

That sense of continuityhas been reflected in histeaching. His courses at BrynMawr (where he taught from1990 to 2000) and Rutgershave included such offeringsas Sports Architecture fromAntiquity to the Present. Thenight before he spoke withus, Brennan was in Athensgiving a lecture on "Baldnessin Antiquity," in which heexamined how ancient atti-tudes toward baldnessinformed "modern stereotypesand misunderstandings."

"Classics has always beensort of an oddball field," heexplains. "It's very hard toexplain even to oneself pre-cisely why it's relevant, andI've struggled with that overthe years. So I'm constantlysearching for ways to makethe ancient world viscerallyimmediate, urgent, and rele-vant, not just an antiquarianexercise. Here in Rome that'svery, very easy." -s.H.

Tracing theClass of 1811

Two centuries ago a score ofyoung men processed from theCollege's Ninth Street campus

to the Independent Tabernacleon Fourth Street. The occasionwas Penn's Commencement.

Showing off their oratoryskills, Samuel BlanchardHow Ci8n spoke ironically(according to contemporaryaccounts) in "defence of duel-ing," while his classmateswaxed on about ambition,the pleasures of rural life, theimmortality of the soul, andthe education of women.

We don't know how muchpomp and circumstancethe graduates put into theoccasion (though Trusteesminutes show that collegiategowns were in use by 1813).But at some point beforeCommencement, theseyoung men visited CharlesWillson Peale's nearby muse-um and had their silhou-ettes, or "profiles," made.

A set of those silhouettes,once owned by BenjaminGratz CiSii, can be found atthe University Archives andRecords Center. To flesh outthose images, the Archiveshas posted an online exhibiton the Class of 1811, offeringa glimpse of the College (or"Philosophical School," as itwas once called) in the earlyigth century as well as of thegraduates' post-Penn lives(www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/i8oos/i8n/classintro.html).

A popular attraction forPenn students, Peale's muse-um housed a trove of naturalspecimens and curiositiesmeant to enlighten the curi-ous masses. For a few centsabove the 2g-cent price ofadmission, visitors couldhave their profiles made bya physiognotrace machine.According to David Brigham,author of Public Culture in

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