I'm Kennedy, a literature nerd and creative writer from the outskirts of Memphis. I'm also a senior here at Dartmouth. When I'm not working in admissions as a senior fellow, I'm a student employee at the library and a research and teaching assistant in the English department. I love music (I collect vinyl!) and analyzing teen drama TV (think Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars). I'm currently applying to law schools. I've had such a great time at Dartmouth and am excited to share that with you!
Professor McCann is my advisor, but that's not the only reason I took this class. Since it was a senior seminar with only 9 students, we got to dive deep into the fascinating material, including with Victorian-era pulp fiction books, advertisements, and psychological treatises, plus some good old fashioned canonical works like The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula. [Fun fact: I've read Dracula three times at Dartmouth... it's an English department favorite!]
WinterHanover, NH
This was an off term for me, but I love Hanover so much I hung around anyways! I worked for admissions and Baker-Berry Library, read a ton of J.G. Ballard, and stared out the window at the snow for an embarrassingly long amount of time. I also visited my parents in Tennessee during Christmas.
Professor Nachlis went out of his way to act as an unofficial pre-law advisor for all of us in this class, not only by introducing us to some of the most pressing issues in American government, but also by dedicating the final two weeks of class to a module called "Should you go to law school?" A question I was asking myself!
SummerHanover, NH
Another off term again, and this time I'm working full-time for admissions as a senior fellow! I'm also doing a lot of preliminary reading for my honors thesis. Anyone heard of Friedrich Kittler's Discourse Networks? Well, I'll have read it twice by the time this term is over.
Con Law with Professor Bedi was one of my favorite classes at Dartmouth. Our in-depth examination of the Constitution and landmark case law built up a "science of the Constitution" (in Prof Bedi's words). Our class of 9 students rarely agreed on anything, which was what made it so fun!
My final paper for this class was an analysis of a civil rights leader's memoir that I actually worked on back during my internship at the University Press of Mississippi! I learned so much in this class, and it was gratifying to return, now with new knowledge, to a text I had a personal relationship with.
An Interview with an English and German Double Major
I met Frances '23 in our freshman fall at Dartmouth, during Orientation Week. She walked up to me in the library and said I had cool hair. A week later, we found ourselves in the same Shakespeare class—she could quote full sections of Hamlet from memory. We've been friends ever since, and I'm honored to get to introduce you all to her work and interests.
Q: Why did you decide to double major in German and English?
A: I came in knowing that I wanted to be an English major—I said so on my application. I also wanted to learn a new language at Dartmouth, because it'd probably be my only chance to do so this easily. I went to an open house with all the language departments and met a kind German professor. I'd already begun studying German on Duolingo, and as a result I placed into German 2. I was a bit scared of jumping ahead to German 2, but there were people at all different levels of German in the class, and the professor was very accommodating. I kept taking German classes because the professors were so nice, and I came to love German literature. It was very easy for me to add my second major, especially because I'd begun doing research with a German professor.
I also love the English department. Within the first couple weeks of taking an English class (Shakespeare, with you, Kennedy!) I fell in love. I kept taking classes and kept having fun in them. The department offers a broad range of classes, and you can also take different classes with the same professors, which helps you build relationships. For instance, I met my thesis advisor my freshman winter, so I knew her for the entirety of my time at Dartmouth. Getting to build those extended relationships with professors has been one of my favorite things here.
Q: Did you work on any research or projects?
A: I started doing research my freshman summer and sophomore fall with Professor Dever. She was working on the Michael Fields project—and I helped with both the transcription of the Fields journals and the book Dever was writing about Michael Fields (who was actually two female poets writing under the same pseudonym). I also researched in the German department with Professor Petra McGillen. We did work on English and German newspaper illustrations pre-photography. After I graduated, I continued working on translations with Professor McGillen, and a book of our translation work is going to be published shortly.
I also wrote an honors thesis about Virginia Woolfe and Oscar Wilde. It was about the figure of the artist and portraiture in two novels by Woolfe and one by Wilde. By studying those books, I was trying to get a better sense of artistic production and reproduction in the late Victorian and early modernist eras. [Kennedy's note: Frances won several English department awards for this excellent thesis.]
I also did a German major culminating experience—a short graphic novel about photographic portraiture of gender non-conforming women in the 1920s and 30s German speaking world—under Professor Yuliya Komska. [Kennedy's note: You can read an interview Frances did about her graphic novel here—it's super interesting and has tons more useful information about the German department!]
Q: What're you planning on doing now that you've left Dartmouth?
A: I am going to Cambridge University in the U.K. to get a masters degree in English. I'm also in the process of applying to PhD programs. I would love to teach at a place like Dartmouth, but that's in the far future.
Q: What resources have you taken advantage of while at Dartmouth?
A: It's amazing how much funding Dartmouth has available. I've gotten two grants from the Leslie Center for the Humanities for the projects I described to you. Also, Dartmouth's paying the majority of my master's degree tuition through the Reynolds Scholarship for Foreign Study.
Q: Do you think Dartmouth is a good undergraduate institution for students interested in English or German?
A: Absolutely. Dartmouth is great for anyone who loves those subjects, but especially for people interested in going into academia like I am, or curious about research. We have a ton of resources, and professors are generous with their time and expertise. Not very many people go into humanities academia after attending Dartmouth, so if you are interested in that path, you'll get a lot of individualized attention and a great jumping-off point to get your masters and PhD, like I'm doing.
Thanks, Frances, and thank you too, reader! The German department is small but wonderful; you can learn more about them on their department website. And likewise for the English department—although I plan on writing about my experience with them soon, so keep your eye out for that!
In addition to blogging, I work as a Fellow for the Tucker Center, which focuses on promoting spiritual and ethical life on campus. As part of this role, I'm leading the Interfaith Alternative Spring Break Trip. Read on to learn more about my work!
