Dr. Renner received his bachelor’s degree in classical studies from Yale and his master’s and doctoral degrees in classical studies from the University of Michigan. A native of Indiana, he developed a keen interest in local history and Americana. Before joining the Montclair State faculty, he taught at Lawrence University (Wisconsin) and Rockford College (Illinois). He chaired the Department of Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State and is director of the Humanities Institute, which he founded. His teaching includes numerous courses on history, archeology and ancient Greco-Roman culture; Greek; Latin; Roman law; social science; old town planning; and a course on the influence of the Greeks and Romans on American culture. He co-led archaeological projects in the southern Levant and traveled extensively across the Mediterranean. He is particularly interested in the relationships between ancient cultures and modern cultural identities.
Professor Renner’s most extensive published research focuses on early Roman society and the information to be gleaned from the Greek papyri of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. He is co-editor of a volume of Columbia University papyri and has published numerous articles on documentary, literary and so-called paraliterary papyri. These include texts that highlight topics such as the study of Greek grammar by the inhabitants of Roman Egypt and the mixing of Greek and Egyptian traditions about the gods. He is currently preparing several articles on the administrative and economic activities of Roman imperial slaves and freedmen, based on evidence from inscriptions, papyri, and wooden tablet archives from Egypt, Campania, and elsewhere. Professor Renner has served as president of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States and the American Society of Papyrologists. He is editor of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, which publishes articles on Greek, Latin, Coptic, Demotic and Arabic papyri, archeology and the social, administrative and cultural history of Egypt from the conquest of Alexander to the Islamic period.
Return to People
