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!
The Dartmouth Undergraduate Research Association (DURA)
Since the fall, I've been involved with the Dartmouth Undergraduate Research Association as an executive chair. The goal of the club is to raise awareness about research opportunities for undergraduates on campus; there are certainly many of them! Specifically, because of my first-gen low-income identity, a priority for me is reaching out to low-income students and sharing resources and pathways to success in research and the broader academic field. In this post, I want to share a bit about what DURA has done this term in order to make research on campus more accessible to undergraduates, specifically those from underrepresented backgrounds in academia and research.
We kicked off this term with a research mixer open to campus. Using Dartmouth's club-allocated funding, we were able to cater Thai food, rent out a hall on campus for the night, and spread awareness about the event around campus. The turnout was great; many students were interested in learning more about how to get involved in research. Since the event was laid out in a mixer format, students could approach me and other executive chairs to ask questions about how we got involved in research and the pathways that we took. By sharing strategies to get involved with research, we were able to help many first-years and underclassmen create plans of action so that they could start reaching out to professors and departments where they would like to do research. My first-year, I had no idea about how to do research on campus, and relied heavily on the internet to answer my questions; being able to make the process easier for new students is very rewarding because it shows the skills I was able to acquire over the course of my Dartmouth experience.
Our second event was an application-writing workshop. Since many fellowship and research applications were due on the 15th, we had an open event where anybody who was applying for those fellowships could speak with students who had gone through the process and were accepted. This was another event where students were able to come to us with specific questions and requests for feedback on research proposals: it was interesting to hear about the wide variety of subjects students were applying to research. The intellectual diversity of Dartmouth is one of my favorite parts about going here, as everyone you talk to has a different set of interests and questions that they are looking for answers to!
We are planning our final event to be a symposium for first-generation/low-income students. By reaching out to them specifically with a presentation and Q&A, we are hoping to create a more accessible environment for learning, research, and curiosity on campus. Dartmouth is hard to navigate for students as is; compound the intersectional realities that first-generation low-income students face, and it becomes nearly impossible to use Dartmouth's resources to their full potential. Therefore, our goal with the symposium is to bring awareness to these resources and provide guidance to how students can take advantage of them.
Overall, helping organize events for DURA has been incredibly rewarding. By using the campus' resources, we've been able to reach out to wide groups of students; for any prospective students reading, make sure to get involved with DURA events on campus!
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.
At Dartmouth, there is an undergraduate requirement for language; after all, it is the liberal arts! Fulfilling this requirement looks different for various people and I will focus on my experience.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, a phenomenal total solar eclipse occurred — and we happened to be within the path of totality. As a result, Dartmouth hosted a variety of eclipse-related events on- and off-campus. Find out how I spent the eclipse!
Traditionally, Dartmouth students take three courses during a term, but I decided to take four courses this term! Learn about course load and the academic system at Dartmouth.
