Contact Information
Research Areas
Awards and Honors
Conrad Humanities Scholar, 2019-2024, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois
Helen Corley Petit Scholar, 2013-2014, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois
Bethwell A. Ogot Book Award, 2013, African Studies Association
Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, 2012-2015, ACLS
Moody Research Grant, 2013, LBJ Presidential Library
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, History
Associate Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Associate Professor, Center for African Studies
External Links
Honors & Awards
Conrad Humanities Scholar, 2019-2024, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois
Helen Corley Petit Scholar, 2013-2014, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois
Bethwell A. Ogot Book Award, 2013, African Studies Association
Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, 2012-2015, ACLS
Moody Research Grant, 2013, LBJ Presidential Library
Highlighted Publications
Brennan, J. R. (2012). Taifa: Making Nation and Race in Urban Tanzania. (New African Histories). Ohio University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/16003
Brennan, J. R., Burton, A., & Lawi, Y. (Eds.) (2007). Dar es Salaam: Histories from an Emerging African Metropolis. African Books Collective. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/16829
Recent Publications
Brennan, J. R. (2022). Print Culture, Islam and the Politics of Caution in Late Colonial Dar es Salaam: A History of Ramadhan Machado Plantan's Zuhra, 1947-1960. Islamic Africa, 12(1), 92-124. https://doi.org/10.1163/21540993-01201003
Brennan, J. R. (2021). Review: E. Callaci, Street Archives and City Life: popular intellectuals in postcolonial Tanzania. Africa, 91(2), 337-338. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972021000115
Brennan, J. R. (2021). Review: Shravan Vidyarthi and Erin Haney, editors. Priya Ramrakha: The Recovered Archive. American Historical Review, 126(3), 1204-1206. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhab513
Brennan, J. R. (2021). The Secret Lives of Dennis Phombeah: Decolonization, the Cold War, and African Political Intelligence, 1953-1974. The International History Review, 43(1), 153-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2020.1776750
Brennan, J. R. (2020). A Partial “History of Histories” of the British Intelligence Machine: A review of S. Ball's Secret History: Writing the Rise of Britain's Intelligence Services. International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 34(3), 627-630. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2020.1816562