#49: Speaking Gender with Montreal Benesch ’22, Linguistics

Montreal tells us about their study on the use of a particular phonetic feature of American English by a handful of genderfluid students at Reed, and also about how they became interested in linguistics.

Reed community members can read Montreal’s thesis, “/s/tylizing the /s/elf: A First Look into the Concurrent Fluidity of Gender and Language,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#48: Retelling the Ramayana with Anjali Reddy ’22, English

Anjali spoke with Albert about her year studying the epic tale of the Ramayana and related texts that examine the story through both gender and caste.

Reed community members can read Anjali’s thesis, “The Power of The Novel: Recognizing The Subaltern in The Ramayana,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#46: Knots and Unknots with Erika Beserra ’22, Mathematics

Take a circular hair tie and set it on a table. That’s an “unknot”. Pick it up, cut it, twist it into a knot and then reconnect the cut ends, and now you’ve got the kind of knot that mathematicians study. Follow along as Erika takes us on a brief journey into her thesis focusing on knot theory.

Reed community members can read Erika’s thesis, “Khovanov Homology: Putting Pants on Knots,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#45: Crip Time in Higher Ed with Hannah Card ’22, Sociology

Albert talked with Hannah about her thesis exploring how students with chronic illnesses manage their time while in college by studying Reed students.

Reed community members can read Hannah’s thesis, “‘Resting time is not wasted time’: Chronic Illness, Time Perspectives, and The Reed Student Experience,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#44: Crime Fighting Time with Will Knight ’22, English

Dive into comic book studies and some great advice on how to approach the thesis with Will in Albert’s first interview for the podcast.

Reed community members can read Will’s thesis, “Extended Gutters: Sequencing Space and the Narrative Power of the Panel in Watchmen,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#43: Assertions with Joseph Puglisi Clark ’22, Philosophy

This is a podcast, and that was an assertion. Joseph spent a year exploring the nature of assertions like this in his thesis (which was mostly written after midnight, apparently).

This is also the last interview conducted by last year’s student producer, Amelie. Thank you Amelie for all the work you did for the podcast, and for helping us get to where we are.

Reed community members can read Joseph’s thesis, “Asserting as Committing,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#42: Studying Borges with Natalya Hill ’22, Religion

Natalya and Amelie talk about how Natalya found Reed and became a religion major. This is also our last episode of the semester. We’ll be back after winter break with more interviews from the class of 2022.

Reed community members can read Natalya’s thesis, “The Ineffable Center: Islam in Borges’s Intertextual Universes,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#41: Understanding Climate Graphs with Rishi Krishnamurthy ’22, Psychology

Why do two people look at the same graph and walk away with different interpretations? Rishi spent a year looking into some reasons for why this happens when people are looking at climate data.

Reed community members can read Rishi’s thesis, “Overt Attention and Cognitive Ability Explain Climate Graph Interpretation,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#40: Taiwanese Political Parties with Seamus Boyle ’22, International Policy Studies

Seamus’s thesis focuses on the fall of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) party, and the impacts this party has had in Seamus’s own family background.

Reed community members can read Seamus’s thesis, “The Blue Sky Falls, the White Sun Sets: a Study of the Decline of the Kuomintang,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.