Welcome! My name is Serena and I'm a '28 from NYC. I'm so excited to be here at Dartmouth and share my experiences with you! On campus you can find me organizing events at Hillel, hosting socials for the women's club frisbee team, trying every single Dartmouth tradition, and yapping in the library. I also love to run, play volleyball, hike, knit, and read fantasy books! If you want to hear about a city kid's adventures in rural New Hampshire, follow along as I experience life in the woods!
In this dynamic class, Visiting Professor Vera Kallenberg taught us a survey of Jewish history and culture from the European enlightenment to the establishment of the State of Israel while also sharing her wealth of knowledge with us! Our small, seminar-style class lent itself to profound conversations around the difficult topics that arose during our discussions. From the Haskalah to discourse around the modern-day Israel-Palestine conflict, our class approached these topics with respect and care for one another. We read historical texts and fascinating personal narratives for homework, and then wove our knowledge about the past and present together in class discussions. What an incredible course!
I absolutely loved this Junior Colloquia English class taught by Professor Beckman. This small, discussion-based class is designed to prepare an English major for the type of work they will do in their Senior year. Professor Beckman is such a brilliant and kindhearted professor, and, especially as the only first-year student in that class, I really benefited from meeting with her in office hours. We read King Lear, The Alchemist, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Roaring Girl alongside various other academic papers. I left every class amazed, my brain filled to the brim with new and exciting knowledge about Renaissance literature. I loved engaging in fascinating topics and discussion in this challenging, high-level class!
In this class, we studied fascinating literature from the 18th and 19th centuries in order to explore what the novel as we know it today emerged from. We studied scandalous female libertines, rogue nuns, and other criminal female characters! We started off reading the surveillance chronicle Oroonoko by Aphra Behn, and we also read Anti-Pamela by Eliza Haywood, A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne, and Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. I loved how Professor Garrison brought every reading to life through a mix of lecture, discussion, and even a book arts workshop visit.
I really enjoyed my first comparative literature class, “Literature and Psychoanalysis.” It was evident that Professor Kritzman cared about each and every one of his students. This was my first exposure to psychoanalytic theory, and I loved exploring concepts such as repression, desire, fantasy, truth, what it means to be human, and more. Just some of the authors we read included Freud, Zizek, Woolf, Mann, Kafka, Kristeva, Fanon, Sophocles, and Shakespeare.
Professor Harner is one of the best professors I have had the privilege of taking a class with, and I thoroughly enjoyed Lit History II. She is such a great teacher; she truly cares about you as a student, offers a ton of feedback, and knows so much about the subject she teaches. We studied 17-19th century literature from Britain and America, studying a pivotal decade each week of the term. I would rate this class a 100000/10!
After taking Literary History II with Professor Harner last term, I knew I needed to take another class with her! Not only was I beyond excited to read my first Charles Dickens novel in this class, but I was also ecstatic to be in the presence of Professor Harner’s brilliance, knowledge, and kindness once again. This class was a Junior Colloquium, a high-level English class that culminates in a 12-15 page research paper. We spent the entire term reading only two books, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and the adaptation Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, while simultaneously reading fascinating papers on literary theory to further our understanding of the texts.
One of my absolute favorite things about going to Dartmouth is how close I am to the outdoors. I grew up in NYC, so I often get asked how the adjustment period to living in Hanover, NH felt. And honestly, I always answer that it felt like coming home. I truly love love love all the amazing nature, and I don't take it for granted!
I love filling my weekends with extreme elevation full-day hikes. During the week, I love to sneak away between classes for casual few-hour hikes. I love to swim in local, quiet swimming holes. I've spent the past two years living and learning in nature and constantly discovering how to pause and admire the grass and trees and the gorgeous, gorgeous sky (Check out the first poem I wrote in appreciation of the outdoors here).
I recently hiked North and South Kinsmen Mountain with my friend Katie, and this hike inspired the poem below. I wrote poem about the surreal feeling one gets after hiking all day, where one remembers all these sensory impressions of the hike. I hope you enjoy :)
Ode to hiking as a Dartmouth student
Heat exhaustion and staring at the sun and coming home and looking in the mirror. That pleasant warm feeling heating your cheeks and seeing yourself for the first time after your odyssey and realizing that you've managed to take a piece of the sun with you. It's a memento from your hike, a tangible way you've changed. You've touched the sky and returned back down to Earth. It's a hug you've asked for with the way you faced open to the great blue expanse of the sky in supplication, in the way you received a gift from Mother Nature. A gift for choosing to spend one's time in nature beneath the canopy of trees and on the alpine terrain over 4,000 feet above the trees. You were brave, and you opened yourself up to the elements. Now you're back home in your dorm with electricity and showers and dead wood in the walls. But you know you are a part of the tapestry of life. For a day you dwelled, endured, and rejoiced in the living, breathing forest and you have your sun-kissed face to thank for it.
