New York University

This year, from locations around the world, Matt Dell (BA ’09), Bretton Dimick (BA ’04), Neil Gong (BA ’08), and Agam Neiman (BA ’07) are having a shared experience: they are the latest Gallatin alumni to receive the prestigious Fulbright award. Established by the U.S. State Department in 1946, the J. William Fulbright Program’s aim is to increase understanding between the people of the United States and people of other countries. To this end, the U.S. student grant provides for one year of independent research, graduate study, or teaching abroad. Before they packed their bags, these adventurous alumni took time to fill in Gallatin Today on their plans.

While a student at Gallatin, Matt Dell focused his studies on the colonial origins of contemporary economic development in the poorest parts of the world. Continuing on this path, his Fulbright research takes place in Bamako, Mali, where he is utilizing ethnographic, historical, and economic approaches to study transnational labor and economic development. He explains: "I’m excited about connecting concrete, contemporary trends to historical events that seem distant and abstract. Colonial policies in Africa in the 1930s, for example, seem totally unrelated to the ways in which we think about ‘philanthropy,’ or the unimpeachable moral authority we attribute to nonprofit and NGO work; however, these things may be profoundly intertwined."When asked about how his Gallatin experience has informed his current work, Dell humbly affirms, "I would not be anywhere near where I am today without the unwavering motivation, inspiration, and guidance of my Gallatin adviser, Millery Polyné, and my former professor, Edmund Fong." After his research is complete, Dell plans to work in the international labor movement and eventually to study labor relations and international development in graduate school.

Bretton Dimick came to Gallatin for the freedom to link musicology and philosophy in one program. His studies focused on music theory and history and also included course work on Irish music— some of which he took while studying in Dublin—as well as private lessons in music performance. Looking back on his work at NYU, Dimick is grateful for the guidance he received from his Gallatin adviser Gage Averill as well as from his “unofficial adviser” Patrick McCreery, Gallatin’s director of global programs and an associate faculty member. He also recalls, “My independent studies with NYC fiddler Tony Demarco were instrumental in my development as an ethnomusicologist.” After graduating with a senior colloquium that explored “Ethics in Ethnography,” Dimick moved to Vietnam. There he apprenticed with a luthier and worked with a violinist and a dan bau (monochord) player. He also studied dan day (threestringed lute) performance with funding from the Center for World Performance Studies Residency. Currently a doctoral student in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies—he acknowledges that Gallatin’s interdisciplinary seminars gave him “a foundation in critical theory that has been extremely useful in graduate school”—his Fulbright work brings him back to Hanoi, Vietnam. He will complete research for his dissertation on ca tru, a form of Vietnamese sung poetry. “Ca tru is interesting because it combines music and language, and it has a long history and connection to the rich poetic and musical legacy of the region,” he states. After finishing his dissertation, Dimick hopes to teach at a university and continue to write, travel, and study music.

Neil Gong graduated from Gallatin magna cum laude with a concentration in mental health and cultural theory. While a student, he participated in clinical internships with Bellevue Hospital and Pathways to Housing, a Harlem-based organization where he currently works. He also completed research at the University of California–Berkeley’s Center for Urban Ethnography and held a leadership role in Gallatin’s student chapter of The Icarus Project, a peer-based mental health support network. He states, “Professor Brad Lewis has been an amazing mentor. He forced me to reconsider some of my basic assumptions about science, the body, and political struggle. Even after I graduated he continued to meet with me and offer professional guidance. Professors Sara Murphy, Edmund Fong, and Jack Tchen have all been great mentors too, keeping me from getting too comfortable with any one way of looking at things.” The recipient of a grant for research in Hong Kong, Gong is investigating the clinical and cultural effects of Westerninfluenced psychotherapies at the University of Hong Kong’s Centre on Behavioral Health. He states: “Gallatin helped me turn a critical eye towards the literature on Eastern versus Western psychology, which often misses the complex hybridity of contemporary societies. Hong Kong is a place where monolithic notions of culture are being destabilized, so I’m excited to see what mental health care looks like over there.” After returning to the U.S., he plans to continue his work in mental health and social justice and to pursue graduate degrees in both sociology and a clinical specialty.

Agam Neiman graduated from Gallatin summa cum laude after studying literature, sociology, film, and philosophy. He remembers, “My adviser, Bill Caspary, sparked my interest in German philosophy during my first year in his course ‘Ethics for Dissenters.’” Neiman then honed this course of study by taking tutorials on anarchist theory and on philosophers Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger as well as an independent study on political philosopher Carl Schmitt. His senior colloquium was entitled “Heteronomy and the Ethical Subject.” Since graduating, he has been living and working as an educator in Berlin, Germany. As the recipient of an English teaching assistantship Fulbright grant for Austria, Neiman will spend a year teaching English and U.S. cultural studies to high school students in a small town outside of Vienna. He states, “I believe that sharing aspects of my culture through teaching, while I’m immersed in another [culture] will be a unique way to experience, or re-experience, both. Meanwhile, it’s the ideal way for me to continue working on my German, which I trust will help me in graduate school, where I hope to study political philosophy and 20^th century European intellectual history.”

Those interested in applying for a Fulbright can learn more at www.iie.org/fulbright and are encouraged to sign up for NYU’s national scholarships information listserv at www.nyu.edu/scholarships.