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James Robert Brennan

Profile picture for James Robert Brennan

Contact Information

309 Gregory Hall MC-466

Associate Professor

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

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

View all publications on Illinois Experts

Recent Publications

Brennan, J. R. (Accepted/In press). Islam, Politics and the Limits of Authority in Mainland Tanzania, 1955-1968. In F. Topan, K. Kresse, E. Stiles, & H. Mwakimako (Eds.), Governance and Islam in East Africa (pp. 112-142). University of Edinburgh.

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

View all publications on Illinois Experts