Jan
Bremmer was born in 1944 in Groningen
in the North of the Netherlands, shortly
before the Canadians liberated the
city from the Germans. His father
was a well-known Calvinist minister
and church historian, and his mother
came from a well-known Calvinist ministers'
family: her grandfather, indeed, was
a professor in theology. Bremmer studied
Classics and Spanish at the Free University,
Amsterdam (1962-19790) and, after
he met his British wife Christine
in Finland, at the University of Bristol
(1969-1970). From 1970-1972 he did
his military service in the Dutch
Military Intelligence. After a few
years as a high-school teacher of
classics, he became an Assistant/Associate
Professor Ancient History at the University
of Utrecht. In 1979 he received his
PhD from the Free University with
his dissertation The
Early Greek Conception of the Soul,
which was published in 1983 by the
Princeton University Press and has
stayed in print ever since. His Greek
Religion (1994)
has been translated into Dutch, German,
Italian and Spanish. In 1990 he was
appointed to the Chair of Religious
Studies at the Faculty of Theology
and Religious Studies of the University
of Groningen, where he was for nearly
10 years dean of the Faculty (1996-2005).
During his deanship, international
assessment committees rated his Faculty
the best of all theological faculties
in the Netherlands both in research
and teaching.
Bremmer
specialises in Greek, Roman, early
Christian and contemporary religion,
social history, and the historiography
of ancient religion. He combines solid
erudition with innovative apporaches,
such as, for example, in his studies
of the role of women in the spread
of early Christianity or of the ways
of walking of Greek men and women.
He has wide scholarly interests, ranging
from the apocryphal traditions about
Jesus' apostles, life after death,
ancient humor and magic to modern
secularisation and contemporary New
Age. His contributions to the field
have been nationally and internationally
recognised. He has been a Fellow of
the Center for Hellenic Studies in
Washington (1980-1981), a Member of
the Institute of Advanced Study in
Princeton (2000), a Canterbury Fellow
of the University of Christchurch
(New Zealand: 2002) and the Inaugural
Getty Villa Professor at the Getty
Research Institute (Los Angeles: 2006-2007).
In
the spring of 2006 his contributions
to science and university life (he
was also very active in helping Chinese
students feel at home in Groningen
) were nationally recognised when
the Queen appointed him Officer in
the Order of Orange - Nassau , one
of the highest Dutch distinctions.
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