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!
This term, I became the student coordinator of the Arabic Club. It's been a great opportunity to work on my organizational skills – in this post, I want to share a bit about what it's like to run a club at Dartmouth!
For the Arabic Club, we meet weekly on Thursdays, from 6:30 - 7:30. Other clubs at Dartmouth have a similar time commitment, meaning that extracurriculars are low-stakes and mostly occupied with everyone having a good time and getting to know each other. One important thing I have to do weekly is send out blitzes (the Dartmouth word for emails!) notifying campus about the weekly club meeting. Everyone on campus gets these emails, which is helpful for inclusivity; almost all the clubs that meet are advertised to everybody, weekly – so, everyone is welcome to come! In these emails, I typically attach a flyer describing the theme of the meeting: for example, last week's meeting was focused on exploring Arabic dialects. In addition, I attach a short blurb and emphasize that everybody is welcome to come!
Here's a flyer I made for one of our meetings: Arabic Poetry Night!
As coordinator, I have agency over how the meetings are run; I typically bring a small TV from my room into the classroom we reserve for the meeting, and we watch some relevant YouTube videos or movie clips in Arabic. Additionally, I usually print out some informational worksheets that can help ground our discussion. However, I usually just let the meeting flow freely, catch up with other students interested in Arabic, and don't always stick to the planned agenda. I find that it's more fun for everybody if the meeting is more informal and interactive; from my perspective, it's a great way to get to know people better and have an hour of fun!
Dartmouth also offers a variety of funding opportunities for clubs. For example, I was able to obtain funding for catered food at our movie night next week; this is extremely common, and the College is usually very helpful in allocating funds for food, drink, etc. And, of course, more people come to meetings when there is food offered!
So far, I have really enjoyed running a club at Dartmouth due to the casual and inclusive nature. For prospective students (and '27s!), make sure to keep your mind open to trying new extracurricular activities in college. Oftentimes, they're great ways to meet people you wouldn't have met otherwise!
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