With a bit of vision, Codi Reynolds ’17, who majors in East Asian studies and comparative literature, found a way to weave sundry intellectual strands – her two majors, gender and sexuality, fiction analysis and Japanese culture, and a video game – into a cohesive summer research project. Reynolds looked at how the game “Persona 4” treats gender and sexuality.
“'Persona 4’ is a Japanese game that has been both criticized and praised for its representation of LGBT+ characters,” says Reynolds, who worked on the project with two professors, one from comp lit and the other from Asian studies. A grant from Hamilton paid for her work.
She wants to hang on to her varied interests in the long term. Reynolds intends eventually to go to graduate school and find a job that allows her to continue working with literature and the Japanese language.
“I really loved the classes that I have taken in those subjects since coming to Hamilton, and I wanted to continue studying them. The professors have made these subjects enjoyable because they are fully invested in the growth of their students,” she says.
(Note: Hamilton formerly had a comp lit major and separate departments for comparative literature and English and creative writing. Those courses are now all offered through the Literature and Creative Writing Department.)
