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Gabriel Gilbert

Class of 2023
Image of Gabriel Gilbert '23; he is wearing a black aloha shirt with a red leaf pattern that runs from his shoulder down the left half of his shirt.

About 

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!

Academic Program 

Linguistics

Favorite Thing Right Now 

Fantasy novels and homemade poke!

Hometown 

Stafford, Virginia

Pronouns 

he/him/his

You are here

Gabriel's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Indigistory

      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.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Historical Linguistics

      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!

    • SpringMyrtle Beach, SC

      Favorite Class: The End of the World

      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.

    • SpringMyrtle Beach, SC

      Favorite Class: Undergraduate Research

      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.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Morphology

      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.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Indian Country Today

      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.

    • WinterHilo, HI

      Favorite Class: Language Documentation

      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.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Sound Relations

      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.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Honors Thesis Research

      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.

Hitting the Fall Term Highlights

And just like that, I'm wrapping up my first term at Dartmouth. I've found it really difficult conveying exactly how time flows in college. It's like I've been here both forever and only just arrived. Here are my 19F highlights.

  1. No. 1

    First-Year Trip - Hiking 1

    Gabe on Trips

    Hiking 1 was probably one of the most interesting intros to hiking I could've imagined. I'd never gone on a hike before, but my trip leaders Brady and Eliza made it a blast — even if it was pouring rain for the entirety of our first day. My trippees (fellow freshmen on the trip) and I bonded over being wet and since then we've shared meals multiple times and still plan on hanging out in the future.

  2. No. 2

    Indigenous Peoples' Day!

    Indigenous Peoples' Day

    Being able to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day was such a phenomenal experience, and the entire month of October was filled with activities that allowed me to learn more about the cultures of my friends and peers from across the nation. It never ceases to amaze me how different and yet similar our backgrounds are. I can honestly say that I started to feel truly at home at Dartmouth during this month, but that's hard not to do when eating food that ranged from frybread to smoked octopus to spam musubi in dozens of celebrations of Indigenous cultural diversity. It was an absolute blast.

  3. No. 3

    First Snowday!

    First snow day 19F

    My first snowday at Dartmouth will probably fade from memory pretty quickly, but I can safely say that I've never been more excited for snow before Thanksgiving. It was hilarious watching all of my friends from tropical places look at snow for the first time and even funnier seeing them suit up in full suits of anti-cold armor (I'm talking like four or more layers here, guys) to brace themselves against the pre-winter chill. But yes, Dartmouth can get cold sometimes. I for one, with zero experience in New England, am actually pretty excited for this totally new experience (that, and the ice fishing and skiing to be done next term...).

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Posted 11/29/2019 at 11:00 PMAll List Posts

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