As the fall semester draws to a close in Oberlin, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the surprising and delightful experiences I’ve had in my classes so far. For a little bit of context, my name is Daniela, and I’m a second-year student who is thiiiis close to declaring a Politics major (hey, by the time this goes up, it might be official!). I’m also planning on getting a minor in Studio Art and maybe Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies as well.
When I was a prospective student, what I wanted to know most about Oberlin is what classes were like, how rigorous or interesting the academics here were. So, here’s my contribution to all you prospies out there. Especially if you’re interested in social sciences and humanities, I hope that these stories help you out in your search! My classes this semester have been unique, offering me opportunities to dive deep into what I am personally interested in. It’s been challenging, obsessive, and incredibly rewarding.
The first class I’d like to talk about is my Comparative Literature class, The Global Phenomenon of Elena Ferrante. If you’re not familiar with the name Elena Ferrante, she’s the famous (and anonymous) author of My Brilliant Friend, the Neopolitan Quartet, and many other contemporary novels. After my mother hounded me to read Ferrante’s works for two full years, I began reading My Brilliant Friend and the Neapolitan Quartet last fall semester. I’ve been hooked ever since. Ferrante’s works have drawn mothers and daughters and granddaughters together across the world in their stark but fantastical descriptions of the feminine existence. That’s why I was shocked and thrilled to find that not only is there a full class on Ferrante’s works, but it’s taught by a world-renowned scholar on Ferrante studies, Professor Milkova.
If you’re wondering what the in-class experience is like, we meet once a week in Peters Hall (look it up, it’s gorgeous) for two hours. More than thirty students cram into a round room and devote all of class time to the thoughtful discussion and analysis of Ferrante’s works. It seems to me every time that the comments only get more insightful, more interesting, and go deeper with each class. Ferrante quickly became not just a personal, but an academic obsession of mine.
Most recently, we’ve been working on an annotated bibliography, an assignment designed to encourage students to explore the academic research there is out there on Ferrante and pull the sources that intrigue us most. I’ve been exploring corporeality and posthumanism in my bibliography, and with each article I read, I only become more deliciously submerged in the universe of Ferrante studies.
In the Politics vein, my Latin American Politics class, too, has been designed to incorporate student interests in its assignments. This class covers both general waves of democratization and economic theory, as well as case studies of individual nations to get a better sense of the diverse ways in which Latin American countries have experienced industrialization and democratization. This course has a fair amount of academic reading per class, but I’ve found the readings to be the most informative and interesting parts of the class. In most 200-level Politics classes, writing assignments are simply consolidating and analyzing information from assigned readings, but our most recent assignment for Latin American Politics was a short research paper; an assignment that requires outside research and arguably far more originality.
For my short research paper, I found myself delving into the niche topic of funk carioca music in the favelas (slums, shantytowns) of Brazil. At first glance, not much had been written on the policing and criminalization of this music genre in Brazil besides a few news articles, but I chose the topic nonetheless. For two weeks, the second I finished my more urgent assignments, I threw myself into the research and writing of this project. Learning about funk, listening to it, watching videos of dance to it, learning about the advocacy for it, consumed me. My friends received multiple rants on the subject. And I loved every minute of it, even when I doubted whether I made a mistake in choosing such a niche topic, because I learned so much from the process.
Now, make no mistake, every time I leap into an academic obsession, be it research or writing or creating an art piece, there’s downsides. I can end up putting too much pressure on the project, giving it undue weight in my mind. I can forget that it’s not, you know, everything to me. But it truly feeds me as a student and as a human to be able to explore things in such depth and with such joy. And I think it speaks to the quality of Oberlin professors that these opportunities for creativity and exploration are embedded into the courses here.
Looking forward to finals, I’ve made it my mission to not produce a single thing that I don’t care about. It’s easy to come up with thesis statements and art project proposals that just check the boxes of the assignment requirements. But it’s far more rewarding when you’re also producing something you’re interested in, something you can look back on with pride.
Wishing everyone the best of luck in finals and hoping you all can find a fun obsession of your own, academic or not!
-Love, Daniela
