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!
Last week, I finished the rest of my final assignments and began my winter break, or, as it's called at Dartmouth, my winterim (winter + interim)! In this post, I want to share a bit about what winterim is, what I'm using that time to do, and how winterim works alongside the D-Plan to enrich the Dartmouth experience!
Winterim is a 6-week long break that begins just before Thanksgiving and ends right after the New Year. This gives Dartmouth students the unique opportunity to have a long break that stretches across the holiday season, whereas most other schools would have a Thanksgiving break and then a separate winter break starting in late-mid December. As someone from the Midwest, I'm a big fan of this timeline – if I went to a school with a brief Thanksgiving break and a continuation of the term afterwards, I probably wouldn't be able to afford flying home for Thanksgiving every year because I would have to travel right back to Hanover a few days later. Additionally, this longer chunk of time gives plenty of room to spend time with family and also work on personal projects and goals.
This winterim is less eventful than breaks I've had in the past – for example, last year in December I traveled to Washington DC to help record a podcast on Middle Eastern affairs for one of my professors. This year, I'm applying for some research grants for the winter, solidifying plans for my off-term in the spring, and producing a promotional video for a local Jiu Jitsu gym in Chicago. The extended winterim break gives me lots of time to think hard about how I want to spend my time for the upcoming year, and now as a junior makes me think about how I can set myself up for success after Dartmouth. Additionally, by not having to worry about assignments or deadline for an entire six weeks, I can devote all of my energy towards personal projects and goals!
Here's a photo I took last interim when I was in DC!
Winterim pairs especially well with the D-Plan due to the fact that it provides a large cushion of time to either extend the fall term or plan for future terms. For example, many study abroad programs start later in the year and extend into the winterim, so that students can take advantage of more programs at more universities. In addition, lots of students' performing arts and outdoors groups take advantage of the winterim to travel around the country together, fully funded by Dartmouth! For example, one of my friends is kayaking the Rio Grande this December with the Ledyard Canoe Club - the opportunities to try new things during winterim are endless.
I'll continue blogging throughout winterim, so I hope I can keep my page fresh with updates about what I'm up to as the year comes to an end!
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!
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!
