Hi, my name is Brandon and I'm a '25 from just outside of Chicago. I study Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, and am involved with multimedia journalism and videography on campus. I am passionate about documentary filmmaking and using film as a tool to present lived human experiences in subjective visual, aesthetic, and sonic terms. In my free time, I love to spend time with my cat, follow the Chicago Bulls, and study Arabic. 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!
I love to make and watch documentaries, so taking ethnographic film was a great way to look at filmmaking in academic, anthropological terms. We watched and analyzed many documentary films throughout the course, considering factors like documentary ethics, filmmaking style, and multi-media approaches. We also did a lot of critical media analysis, looking at how the medium of a piece of work impacts the message it is trying to convey. Additionally, we were able to work on and submit our own short documentary films as final projects for the course.
This term I am taking Cinematography, a really fun film class focused on learning lighting techniques, composition, and other key components of cinematography. In this post, I want to share my experience in the class to give prospective students an idea of how film classes are structured at Dartmouth!
The class meets once a week on Wednesdays from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. I've never taken a class during that time block before, so it's definitely been an adjustment being in class that late. The three-hour duration also has some pros and cons. On the one hand, it's convenient and effective for scheduling to only have class once a week; on the other, three hours is definitely a long time to spend in one room! However, we spent lots of time moving around and doing different types of activities over the course of the three hours to keep things interesting and fresh.
The course is split into three different film projects. The first project is a short silent film up to three minutes long. It's a group project and there are three people in each group, which makes it easy to meet people in the class and practice creative collaboration. We are also given lots of agency and creative liberty to take the project in a variety of different directions. For the silent film, my group is making a short film focused on silhouettes and shadows, placing subjects in front of a lit background like windows, sunsets, and artificial light in order to create shadow and silhouette effects. It has been lots of fun working on the project with my group, and has also been a great opportunity to get a better understanding of light and shadows, which will certainly serve me well in future film projects.
The second project we will be working on is a music video, which will be a great chance to mix cinematography skills and dynamic editing techniques. That project will also be in groups of three, but the groups will be shuffled so that we have a chance to work with new people – this makes the class a great way to mix different creative styles and think outside of the box!
Our final project is independent, and we have total freedom to produce any sort of film of our choosing. For my final project, I will be working with the footage from a documentary that I am currently shooting about beekeepers in Vermont and New Hampshire. It's great that the class gives me the creative freedom to create a brief cut of that film for the final project! I started working on the film after meeting multiple beekeepers in New England, and I am really excited about all the stories I will be able to share through the film.
Overall, my experience so far in my cinematography class has been very rewarding. If you're interested about filmmaking at Dartmouth, keep up with my blog posts, as I will certainly be posting more about my experiences as a filmmaker on campus!
