What's up! My name is Brandon and I'm a '25 from a small town outside of Chicago. I am passionate about Middle Eastern culture, politics, history, and languages; I'm particularly interested in studying gender/sexuality, politics of exhibition, and counterculture in the Arab Gulf. My current hobbies are reading, playing the mandolin, audio design, eating spicy foods, and streetwear. Please enjoy these snapshots of my life in Hanover!
This was definitely my favorite class of fall term—the readings were heavy, but they all felt incredibly relevant to the coursework. For each class, we read both Jewish and Arab perspectives throughout history. Moreover, Professor Avishai has a vast network of connections with important members of Israeli government, and even figures who we read about in the history books (including former prime ministers!). Overall, that class was a lot of work but very effective in helping me understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Professor Smolin's lectures were always something for me to look forward to. In this intro class, a wide variety of subjects regarding the Arab world were covered. Topics such as culture, Islam, literature, poetry, politics, and history were covered from the pre-Islamic period to the more recent Arab Spring. The readings were fascinating, and the professor also incorporated a wide variety of video resources to accompany the readings. I loved this class!
I found myself regularly engrossed in Professor Fishere's lectures in Arab Political Thought. Tracking the development of political ideologies from the 1800s until today was fascinating, the discussion-based classes helped me get to know tons of my peers.
While in Morocco this summer, I had the chance to take intensive Arabic 21 and Arabic 22. Working with a local teacher, Ilham, I had the chance to study both standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic .My favorite part of the class was the opportunity to engage with the language in cafes and shops.
Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy was definitely a class that took me out of my comfort zone. Having never taken a class on philosophy, I had lots of fun studying readings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Furthermore, I liked that the class focused heavily on group-work, with weekly group meetings and write-ups being a critical component of the class.
This class made me think critically about how we use different media, and how different media use us. I always considered media and technology as tools we use to navigate life, but never thought about the ways that media influence us and perceptions of the self. Taking this course inspired me to be involved more with digital humanities in order to think critically about how different media can alter the meaning of a message.
I had a great spring term living in Kuwait while interning at the American University of Kuwait! Working as an intern with the Oral History Project and International Relations departments, I met many amazing friends and gained experience with oral history and digital humanities. As someone who wants to continue doing research on the Arab Gulf, this experience was incredibly valuable.
Filmmaking & Visual Culture was about the intersection of filmmaking and anthropology, and I really enjoyed the course. The course looked at film through a post-colonial lens, thinking about how it can be used as a tool to tell stories, empower communities, and challenge structural violence. As a final project, we were required to make our own films with the broad requirement that they had to tell some kind of story or narrative. Having this sort of creative freedom was lots of fun: I did a short film project about a farmer in the Upper Valley.
This was the first science course that I had ever taken at Dartmouth, and I actually really enjoyed it. The course was focused on being able to identity the names and functions of the bones and muscles in the human body: we covered a lot of ground in a short 10-week term. In addition to studying human anatomy, we also studied the anatomy of monkeys and chimps, comparing their evolutionary trends to those of humans. We also had the chance to visit the Geisel School of Medicine cadaver lab on multiple occasions to review for exams, which was definitely a unique experience. Overall, I'm glad I took the opportunity to go outside of my comfort zone a little bit with this class!
One of my favorite parts about Dartmouth is the abundance of research funding and grants available for undergraduate students. While these funds are often reserved for graduate students at other institutions, Dartmouth's undergraduate focus means that there is plenty of money available to all undergraduates to conduct independent research projects! In this post, I will share some information about a unique research grant at Dartmouth: The Hopkins Center Arts Integration Grant.
This unique research grant encourages students to pursue a project that is grounded in the arts, but also crosses over other disciplines of research. The interdisciplinary approach gives students the freedom to explore various fields of research, while including artistic components in their work. Ultimately, the goal of the grant is to show how the arts are in natural dialogue with all areas of scholarship, with an aim to broaden the impact of research across all disciplines by grounding them in the arts. This is a great opportunity for undergraduates to consider a research project that may be on the more creative side, which might be difficult to get funding for otherwise: encouraging this interdisciplinary work is a key component of Dartmouth's dedication to the liberal arts.
Through this grant, students are encouraged to produce a wide range of art: drawings, sculptures, film, music, paintings, and anything else that falls into the artistic realm. Students can request between $2,000 and $10,000 in their application, depending on the needs of their project. Moreover, if a student teams up with a faculty member, that amount goes up to $100,000 for the purposes of the project! It is incredible that undergraduate students have access to such a high degree of institutional support for their own creative and academic project. Students can even collaborate with other students in their proposals, creating a team with which to complete the research project.
The Arts Integration Grant is not completely unique at Dartmouth. There are plenty of other sources of funding available for undergraduates across all departments and disciplines, which is what makes Dartmouth truly incredible! If you are interested in doing undergraduate research of any kind, Dartmouth's emphasis on providing research opportunities and institutional support to undergraduate projects is unmatched. Looking back at my Dartmouth experience, I can certainly say that these funding opportunities have been a highlight of my college career thus far.
After returning from an enriching study abroad program, I'm diving into a bustling spring semester here at Dartmouth. Here are my four courses I'm taking this term!
Dartmouth's liberal arts curriculum pushes students to explore new departments and draw connections between seemingly disparate disciplines. Come explore my Economics, Physics, and Asian, Societies, Cultures, and Languages classes!
I have written about being a student worker plenty of times in the past, but I have yet to talk about one of my favorite jobs ever: ticket selling at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
