Emma Smith ’13, the co-founder of Mercy’s Dream Ministries — an organization that provides aid to an orphanage in Ghana — and Dartmouth’s 23rd Harry S. Truman scholar, considers her most influential college experience to be one far removed from Hanover. During her sophomore Fall, Smith took a road rarely traveled by Dartmouth students and decided to participate in the Semester at Sea program, sponsored by the University of Virginia. The experience served to both feed Smith’s passion for travel and to shape her career path, she said.
“It was definitely the highlight of my college career,” Smith said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. “I was able to see fourteen countries in four months, interact with people on four different continents, and make lifelong friends. I learned more in those four months than I think I learned in my life that far.”… Read more »
Though many of us may not realize it, several of our favorite books from childhood, including “The Wizard of Oz” and “Peter Pan,” may actually promote deviant behavior. Women and gender studies professor [Michael Bronski])(http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wstudies/faculty/bronski.html) is currently exploring this theory in his book, “The World Turned Upside Down: The Queerness of Children’s Literature.” “What we’ve called children’s literature — the pieces that have lasted and been deemed most important — are antithetical to how we want to bring up children,” Bronski said. These popular books often send subversive messages. “Alice in Wonderland” is saturated with inappropriate images, including drug use. Even Seuss’ much beloved “The Cat in the Hat” advocates destruction and disorder rather than responsible behavior in the absence of parents, Bronski said. Bronski’s main thesis examines the incongruence of our culture’s simultaneous promotion of both the notion that children should behave responsibly and the rebellious messages of children’s literature. Bronski asks, “What does this really tell us about what we think about children?” The book was inspired by a talk Bronski gave at Dartmouth in 2000 called “Queering Harry Potter,” which points to how magic and deviation from traditional behavior are painted favorably in the popular series. “The… Read more »
To Nick Knezek ’12, of Sanger, Texas, Dartmouth Idol is just one more part of a lifelong engagement with music of all kinds. In addition to playing the piano since kindergarten, he played the clarinet for seven years and learned the drums and marimba three years ago. In high school he joined the school and church choirs and even participated in musical theatre before coming to Dartmouth. On campus, Knezek is a member of both the Glee Club and X.ado. A physics and engineering major, he is also interested in philosophy and outdoor sports like hiking, skiing, snowboarding, canoeing and swimming. For his final “Dartmouth Idol” performance, Knezek will perform four songs: “Take On Me,” “Let’s Stay Together,” a Johnny Cash and Garth Brooks medley and the part of the Grinch in a group performance of Seuss songs. In particular, “Let’s Stay Together” will pose a challenge to him because of its high key and unfamiliar style, he said. He admitted, however, that challenge was exactly what drew him to “Dartmouth Idol” in the first place, when he auditioned last year. “When I began singing, I always sang choral bass parts, but recently I’ve been trying to transition to… Read more »
What do you get when you mix four talented students, string instruments and great modern songs? The newest musical venture on campus: The Dartmouth Vibes. The Dartmouth Vibes was created by Emmanuel Kim ’15 when he realized that there was no other such club on campus. They are a pop string group that performs versions of hits by major artists such as Adele and Michael Jackson. Though they are not yet an official College-sponsored organization, The Vibes are still hard at work. “Practice is every week, and it’s serious but casual,” Kim said. “We work on the pieces as if they are concertos to be perfected — but we have lots of fun in the process, as well!” Currently, Kim and Erica Westenberg ’15 play the violin, Joshua Prickel ’15 plays the viola and Pranam Chatterjee ’15 is on the cello. Some of the songs they have in the works include Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” Train’s “Hey Soul Sister” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Looking toward the future, The Vibes hope to expand their membership and become an official group. Their goal is to increase membership by about five musicians next year, especially with new members… Read more »
A recent post by the ”Daily Mail” discusses one of the first-ever altered images: the 150 year-old portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, the epitomal portrait (as discussed here in a 2009 piece by Dartmouth professor Hany Farid) is a composite of Lincoln’s head and southern politician John Calhoun’s body. COURTESY OF DAILYMAIL.CO.UK Farid, a digital forensics expert, told the Mail: ”Although we may have the impression that photographic tampering is something relatively new – a product of the digital age — the reality is that history is riddled with photographic fakes.” Farid said the air-brushing of images by brutal dictators — like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro — to remove enemies from pictures was common. COURTESY OF DAILYMAIL.CO.UK He added: “Although there are many historical examples of photographic fakes, time-consuming and cumbersome darkroom techniques were required to create… Read more »
After immigrating to the United States in 1970, Misagh Parsa discovered the relevance of sociology to his Iranian background, eventually becoming a member of Dartmouth’s own sociology department. Members of the field strive to understand the mechanisms that cause poverty and persecution, both of which Parsa faced in his childhood. Parsa was born into a poor family that belonged to an ethnic minority group representing only 40,000 of Iran’s total population of nearly 30 million at the time. “From early on, I noticed that we were economically poor, politically powerless, religiously persecuted and socially outcast and excluded in Iranian society at large,” Parsa said. After serving in the Iranian army, Parsa arrived in New York with $320.68 and a desire for an education. While working and studying English, Parsa attended Queens College, graduating in 1975. Throughout his undergraduate experience, Parsa became intrigued by how the study of sociology pertained to his life. “I became very sensitive to understanding the roots of poverty, political oppression, religious antagonism and the social exclusion of minority groups in human civilizations,” he said. Even today, after living in America for 40 years, Parsa still finds that his research relates back to his personal experiences. Due… Read more »