Aloha to the page of a wanderlusting writer juggling college life and several other hobbies into an eternally-short 24-hour day. I hope to shed light on the Dartmouth experience as I explore the brave new world of Hanover, NH and everything going to college here has to offer. In my free time, you can find me trying to learn a new language or building the perfect Spotify playlist (alternative/indie, anyone?). I hope you enjoy!
Taught by Gordon Henry, an Anishinaabe poet and author, this class taught me to explore Indigenous storytelling within digital contexts. I took this class with only seven other classmates, allowing us to really engage with films, comic books, and television shows in Indigenous languages or produced by Indigenous artists.
Taught by Timothy Pulju, this class taught me how to identify and understand how languages evolve over time and why. I analyzed and reconstructed fictional languages of imaginary nations in order to understand the link between language and culture, and ended up having such an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of language's place in history!
Taught by Lindsay Whaley, this class let me discover a newfound love for ancient apocalyptic literature. We analyzed ancient texts and compared them to modern apocalypses, looking at the zombie apocalypse phenomenon and other apocalypses in pop culture and comparing them to the ancient tradition of writing apocalypses. Additionally, I learned the Greek alphabet and now I can even stumble through ancient Greek passages.
FallNew Orleans, LA
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught and organized by David Peterson, this class let me get into the shoes of a real linguist as we did fieldwork (virtually!!) with the Zophei language. I learned how to describe a never-before-learned language's phonology (sound system), how to characterize its grammar and words, and ultimately got to present my research to experts in the language family around the world in a workshop at the end of the term!
WinterHanover, NH
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class taught me how Native literature can provide lens by which to evaluate, critique, and ultimately revise Federal Indian Law. During this class, I read works by Native authors like Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich '76 alongside the opinions of definitive case opinions in American law and explained how literature can be a catalyst for Indigenous sovereignty.
Supervised by N. Bruce Duthu, I spent this off-term performing research after being awarded a Sophomore Research Scholarship to study contemporary Hawaiian cultural and linguistic revitalization. I studied 19th-century newspapers and contemporary Hawaiian texts in order to understand how Hawaiian language revitalization both past and present has advanced and continues to enable a contemporary bodied Hawaiian politic of sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me about how languages create meaning through words. During this class, I learned how to analyze different languages' morphological processes and compare different approaches within the field as to morphological structures.
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class offered me a glimpse into the lived realities of Native people in Indian Country Today. I learned about the economic, social, cultural, and historical roots for the struggles of Indigenous people today within the United States, and was able to write about the contemporary battle for Native Hawaiian visibility and Hawaiian sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me how to engage in language documentation and how, as a linguist, we can put our skills to use to help communities seeking to document and revitalize their languages. I worked on the Satawalese language, spoken on the island of Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ultimately, my team created two dictionaries - one in English, one in Hawaiian, a website, and several materials that focused on the Satawalese tradition of wayfinding and non-instrumental ocean navigation.
Taught by Charles Eastman fellow Sunaina Kale, this class taught me about the role of sound in delineating, conceiving, and comprehending relations between people and the land in Indigenous musical traditions. Over the course of the class, we discussed Indigenous musicians, listened to music from Native peoples around the world, heard from masterful Indigenous musicians, and ultimately presented a project that creatively analyzed a song of our choice. My project focused on the song "Ask Yourself" by Foster the People, and I wrote a poem that integrated aspects of Indigenous languages and worldviews to answer questions posed by the song.
This term, I formally began the research process for my upcoming honors thesis in the Linguistics department on Hawaiian semantics! While living in Hanover, I also began working as a Senior Fellow with the Admissions department—a position I will be holding for the entirety of my last year at Dartmouth.
Dartmouth is home to a ton of different departments, but one of my favorites is the Native American Studies (NAS) department. Let me tell you why you should take a NAS class at Dartmouth!
During my freshman fall, I didn't have the slightest idea of the exact classes I wanted to take. It's Dartmouth practice for freshmen to pick their classes just before classes start, and so I put off the decision for my courses until it was finally time to pick. I didn't do too much research at all; I wanted to be surprised. The only knowledge I had about specific classes was a "speed-dating" activity that I'd participated in during pre-orientation, where I met different professors and chatted briefly about their department's course offerings. Immediately, I was drawn to the Native American Studies department for the passion. Additionally, I had no idea what Native American Studies was! I'm not personally Native American, nor did I learn too much about Native history in school, which meant that the department would be going into subject areas that I've rarely been able to engage with. When I needed to finally choose classes, I decided: I was going to try Native American Studies.
I ended up taking a class called Indigistory, which basically engaged with how Indigenous people of today were using digital mediums to celebrate, honor, and appreciate their culture through visual storytelling. The course was taught by award-winning poet and author Gordon Henry (I talked about this class here, if you'd like to learn more!), and allowed us to dive into the different techniques used by Native storytellers today to perform cultural revitalization in the 21st century. This was a class of just eight people, allowing for deep discussions and plenty of interaction between every person in the class. We all came from very different cultural traditions and backgrounds, and being able to work so collaboratively outside of the typical lecture-style class was one of the best ways to kickstart my college experience. College isn't high school -- not by the most generous of definitions, but then again maybe the contrast is even easier to see where your college is Dartmouth.
Indigistory was an interdisciplinary class, bringing together literature, film, linguistics, history, and the arts together in one unified, cohesive curriculum that showed me the value of borrowing from other disciplines. That is essentially the liberal arts! And Native American Studies as a department is very much like that: you can't divorce one discipline from the other. Every Native American Studies class I've had so far -- just about five in total -- has blended different fields of study in order to create a course that insightfully dives into Native studies. It's allowed me to define parts of my lived experience, putting them into the context of colonialism and other aspects of global history. If you're like me and constantly overwhelmed by all of the different classes available, wanting to take them all, then Native American Studies is a great way to touch on different academic disciplines within one class.
This term, I'm taking the class Native American Literature and the Law (NAS 041). Two of the books in the cover for this post are ones my class has read alongside landmark legal cases in the world of Federal Indian Law. As a prospective law student, this class has given me the ability to marry two of my interests -- one new, one old -- and tackle advanced legal concepts in the context of literature. Like Indigistory, NAS 041 is letting me contextualize my world and read fiction, history, and cases as part of a unified curriculum.
I could go on and on about my experiences in Native American Studies, and have no shortage of memories. If you're looking to try something new at college, and especially something completely different than what you were exposed to in high school, I can't recommend the NAS department enough. The people are incredible, the subject matter is intriguing, and the chance you'll end up taking a class with me is multiplied! Can there be a better reason? See y'all soon!
Unlike some other universities, many of the STEM lecture classes at Dartmouth require concurrent enrollment in a laboratory section. What is it like navigating that time as a student?
