This month features Great Books Stanford’s resident BFFs: Tatie Balabanis (Stanford ’19) and Martina Lentino (UChicago ’19). Both Tatie and Martina hail from Miami, and their friendship began in a fated gym class during their freshman year of high school.
- Names: Tatiana Balabanis and Martina Lentino
- Relationship to Great Books:
- Tatie: I was a camper at Great Books Stanford from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2014. This past summer I had the absolute privilege to see the other side of GBSP and was an intermediate PA again at the Stanford campus (I spend 100% of my time here).
- Martina: I was a PA at Stanford in the summer of 2016 and I loved it!
- Life Status:
- Tatie: I’m currently a sophomore at Stanford studying psychology while completing the pre-med track. One of my favorite classes was a philosophy course called “Can good people like bad music?” which interrogated the objectivity of good music. We also had “the great Kanye debate” which may have been the highlight of my entire debating career. I am also on the rugby team here, a sport which I picked up just for funsies when I started college and I am now competing in nationally.
- Martina: Right now, I’m an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago majoring in Art History and minoring in Human Rights! I love going to the Art Institute of Chicago as often as I can. It’s a really beautiful museum with a spectacular collection, and there’s always something new to see or that I missed in the past. As a student, I get free admission to most museums in the Chicago area, so it’s really great!
- What is your nerdy fun fact?
- Tatie: My roommate brought home a giant pinecone the other day and gave me naming rights so I named him Geoffrey “Spike Jones” Chaucer. She was far less amused than I was.
- Martina: My nerdy fun fact is that I know the full scores of an embarrassing amount of musicals by heart, and I especially know the “Phantom of the Opera” because in middle school I listened to it so much that it was my ringtone (back when ringtones were a thing).
- What’s your nerdiest attribute?
- Martina: I genuinely have a great time facilitating and being a part of academic discussions, both in class and in daily life. It makes me really, really happy to talk about interesting things and new ideas with people who are willing to bring more to the table.
- Favorite book?
- Tatie: Catcher in the Rye. I read it in a few hours the other day.
- Martina: My favorite book is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Highly recommend.
- Which nerd in history would you most like to have dinner with?
- Martina: I would love to have lunch with Laura Mulvey. In 1975, she wrote a groundbreaking text through a Freudian lens about the “male” gaze when regarding women in cinema that helped to condition how we think about many postmodern works of art today. I would love to discuss her research and how she came to the conclusions she did.
- Who was your first fictional crush?
- Martina: He wasn’t my first fictional crush, but it’s pretty embarrassing and I’ll just put it on here because I’m sure many can relate: Four from the Divergent series. What a man.
- What’s your favorite thing about Stanford?
- Tatie: All of my professors are so unapologetically dedicated to their respective fields of study and that just makes the learning process that much more enjoyable. Also, finding out three weeks into the quarter that your professor is a Nobel Prize winner is pretty cool.
- What’s your favorite thing about Chicago?
- Martina: My favorite part about Chicago is the ready availability of visual and performing arts, pretty much always, with countless museums and small professional theaters. And I absolutely adore UChicago because it’s home to some of the most interesting, driven, and intelligent people that I’ve ever met. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t set high standards for themselves. I also have always felt very comfortable at UChicago; whether in being myself at all times around everyone, in my surroundings in the city, or in a classroom setting.
Name: Eve Houghton
Currently reading: I’m currently working my way through a stack of twentieth century editions of the Earl of Rochester’s poetry for an essay project on the Rochester manuscripts at the Beinecke, and I’m also halfway through Meredith McGill’s American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting to try to brush up on antebellum book history for another essay. On the non-academic front, I’m reading Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? (Thank you to fellow PA 
Name: Thomas Hopper (T-Hopp/T-Money/T-Dubb)
Can the movie ever be better than the book?: No, but they can exist as separate and equally profound works of art, like “Cold Mountain,” “The English Patient,” “No Country for Old Men,” or “Love in the Time of Cholera.” Films can change the focus of novels, and play up certain elements that the novel suppresses or doesn’t develop, but not better, no.
Name: Narthurs (Noah Arthurs)
First fictional crush: Hermione, just like everyone else ever.
Name: Kaitlyn Burd, but you can call me K.Burd
Nerdiest attribute: I love being read to and reading aloud to more than I love most things. I would rather have a friend read me a story than watch a movie with that friend.
Which author would you want to write your story?: Isabel Allende because I want magic with my realism.
It’s impossible to avoid James Joyce while in Dublin. His most famous works, including Dubliners and Ulysses, were shaped by their setting, and in many ways the city shines as a main character in these iconic works.
In such a literary city, you’re apt to find a bookshop every time you turn a corner. One of our favorites is the Gutter Bookshop, themed for Oscar Wilde, whose character Lord Darlington famously said “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” This independent bookshop is certainly not the largest in Dublin, but it offers a quaint atmosphere and a unique selection of reading material. In addition to an array of Wildean memorabilia, the Gutter is also known for their amazing children’s book section.
Were you to go to the Old Library, pull out a dictionary, and look up “library,” you would find a picture of yourself standing in the library holding a dictionary. This is the Platonic ideal of libraries, right on the very campus where we’ll be living during Literary Dublin!
Nestled within the gorgeous original architecture of an 18th-century Dublin home, the National Writer’s Museum pays tribute to Ireland’s great writers of the past and present. With all its writers in one place, a visit to the National Writer’s Museum is a perfect way to sum up a literary tour of Dublin.
Name: Trevor Stankiewicz or Tree Stank
If you were building the perfect literary debate team, which three authors would you nominate for your team?: My first pick would be Harper Lee because she created Atticus Finch, who upon second thought might be my actual first fictional crush. My second pick would be J.D. Salinger because Zooey is one of the best debaters and most critical characters I’ve ever experienced in literature. Rounding out the team would be Dr. Seuss as a wildcard.
A little further north, this public house was a frequent meeting place for the Inklings, a group of Oxford dons which most notably included J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, of Lord of the Rings and Narnia fame, respectively. Known locally as “the Bird and the Baby,” the Eagle and Child is a great place to stop for sustenance, literary inspiration, and a pint (if you’re old enough). We recommend the Cheddar, Potato and Spinach Pie.
