Hannah Duane is a senior in Currier House, concentrating in Social Studies and Philosophy. She grew up in San Francisco and attended an arts high school where she focused in creative writing, reading most avidly Sappho and Grace Paley. Before transferring to Harvard in the Fall of 2023, she was a student at Deep Springs College—a self-governed two-year liberal arts college on a cattle ranch in California. At Deep Springs, she developed an interest in philosophy and political theory, most memorably studying Plato, Kierkegaard, Tocqueville, and Arendt. But in addition to her academic work, Deep Springs also taught Hannah how to shoe a horse, pull a calf, and clean a grease trap. After finishing her coursework there, she stayed on as the student cowboy, working full time with the animals.
Since transferring to Harvard, Hannah has continued to develop her interest in political theory and intellectual history through the support of the Social Studies and Philosophy Departments, a fellowship with the Safra Center, the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at the Kennedy School, and a variety of wonderful reading groups. She is currently working on a thesis on Hannah Arendt’s concept of human nature and political time under the guidance of Professor Peter Gordon. Hannah is very excited to join the Intellectual Vitality Student Advisory Board this Fall, where she is particularly excited to think about ways of revitalizing the study of the humanities at Harvard.