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!
One of the best parts about Dartmouth is the strong emphasis the school places on undergraduate focus. Although this was a significant factor behind my decision to apply to Dartmouth, after being here for three years I definitely think it is my favorite thing that Dartmouth has to offer.
Dartmouth's undergraduate population is much larger than the graduate student population, which can't be said for many of Dartmouth's Ivy League peers. Not only does this mean that undergraduates do not have to compete with graduate students for work, research and internship opportunities, but all of these programs are designed with undergraduates in mind.
In my experience, this has meant an incredibly rich Dartmouth experience in which I've been able to get to know many of my professors, go on multiple study-abroad programs, conduct research across various disciplines, and take advantage of a wide range of work and extracurricular opportunities. Doing research at Dartmouth is incredibly accessible, and usually just requires some outreach to a professor – moreover, all of these research opportunities are paid. In addition, the various pools of grant funding available at Dartmouth are geared towards undergraduates, whereas at many other schools a wide pool of qualified graduate students would also be vying for those same grants.
However, it's not only the small graduate student population that leads to a strong undergraduate focus - it is also the fact that the undergraduate student population is also small, with each graduating class having less than 2,000 students. Despite the small student body, Dartmouth provides the resources expected of an R1 research university in terms of academic and extracurricular enrichment. That is to say, there are certainly enough resources to go around in terms of professional development, independent projects, and supplementing the learning going on in class.
By taking advantage of the resources available at Dartmouth, I've been able to have a number of life-changing experiences. Furthermore, taking advantage of one opportunity can lead you directly to the next! For example, early on at Dartmouth I explored interests in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies.
After taking a course on Middle Eastern politics, the professor of the course reached out with a research opportunity related to helping him create a podcast on Middle Eastern affairs. That research helped familiarize me with audio editing, which made me interested in digital humanities, which led to a curiosity about documentary video production.
I then applied for a research grant which provided me the economic means to buy my own camera and videography equipment - afterwards, I took advantage of various job opportunities for students involved in videography and starting learning while applying my knowledge in work-based settings.
Gaining this experience helped me improve my independent film work, which has led to a variety of internships and professional opportunities in documentary video production, something I had never explored or considered before Dartmouth. Overall, this is all to say that at Dartmouth, the wide breadth of resources available to undergraduates means that it is possible to go from opportunity to opportunity with lots of institutional support. For this reason, Dartmouth's undergraduate focus has been the most valuable component of my Dartmouth experience.
In the Winter term of 2024, I composed and performed an hour-long, avant-garde concert as the culmination of the grant award. Here is more on my experiences with research as a musician.
