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!
Throughout the course of my blog, I've written a lot about the various research opportunities at Dartmouth for undergraduates. Due to the small grad-student population and emphasis on undergraduate focus, Dartmouth is uniquely positioned to give undergraduates a wide variety of research opportunities: however, it is important for students to be active in seeking these out, developing relationships with potential advisors, and thinking critically research projects and directions that are relevant to their interests.
In this post, I want to write specifically about the Stamps Scholars program at Dartmouth. This program empowers students to perform self-driven research with the assistance of faculty mentors and provides significant financial and institutional support for any research project of the student's choosing! In my opinion, it is one of the best research programs that Dartmouth has to offer.
The fellowship is available for sophomores to apply in their winter term, and it lasts a total of two years (junior and senior years). As part of the fellowship, students are awarded $20,000 and resources via the Stamps network to conduct research across a wide variety of disciplines—both in STEM and the humanities! Students are given total freedom to research whatever they'd like and allocate their resources toward any of their project plans.
Through my project, I'm exploring my interests in the Arab Gulf by conducting an anthropological study of consumerism in Saudi Arabia's shopping malls. Due to all of the rapid political change in Saudi Arabia in the last few years following the rise of Muhammad bin Salman, the young crown prince, there are many economic, cultural, and political changes happening in the kingdom. These changes have had a significant impact on the shopping mall as a public space, and I want to study how those changes have affected people's shopping habits and identity formation in public spaces like shopping malls.
The Stamps Scholars program is just one of many fellowship opportunities available to Dartmouth undergraduates. There's also the Mellon Mays fellowship program, directed towards underrepresented minority groups interested in pursuing careers in academia. This fellowship also includes funding and institutional support for a personal project. Furthermore, a multitude of other research opportunities are available for Dartmouth students. Additionally, since Dartmouth focuses primarily on undergraduates, these programs and resources allow students to get a taste of research before deciding whether or not to pursue graduate studies!
The research opportunities at Dartmouth are endless and exciting—with any questions about them, feel free to reach out over email: @brandon.mioduszewski.25@dartmouth.edu
It's easy to forget how easy it is to access walking trails during the hustle of a Dartmouth term. As graduation nears, I am reminded of how special it is to step off campus and enjoy quiet moments in nature.
With a solar eclipse sweeping across North America for the first time in nearly seven years on April 8th came a road-trip with hundreds of other Dartmouth students to a zone of totality near campus: St. Johnsbury, Vermont!
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!
