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Ruby Constantino ’21, a senior double majoring in Africana world studies and women’s and gender studies, blended her love for diverse stories and Gothic horror in her thesis for the Honors College performing and literary arts track. Her project, The Witching Hour: A Collection of Gothic Horror Stories, consists of three short stories in the Gothic horror genre. Each story is around 20 to 30 pages long and has common elements of the Gothic genre such as the supernatural, mystery and suspense, dreams/nightmares, themes of madness, death, melodrama, romance, evil characters, and haunted settings.
“Gothic horror has been of interest to me ever since I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in my senior year of high school. I’ve always liked spooky stories, but I especially loved that book and was greatly inspired by the fact that it was written by a woman. However, something I do not like about the Gothic genre is its tendency to center around White men protagonists while sidelining weak women as minor characters,” says Constantino, whose stories feature women and queer characters of color. She worked closely with Professor Philip Cioffari on her project.
“My goal for this thesis was to reinterpret the historically Whitewashed and man-centric Gothic horror genre in a feminist, queer-friendly, and racially diverse way. For instance, common tropes of Gothic literature include the ‘burdened man protagonist’ and ‘damsel in distress.’ My stories reject and challenge these tropes by only featuring queer women and girls of color as main characters who are neither weak because of their gender nor demonized because of their race and sexuality. As a result, my project has a powerful message at its heart—that is, queer women of color have a place in Gothic literature too, and oftentimes such characters make horror stories even more interesting and relatable for readers,” she says.
A straight-A student throughout her four years at the University, Constantino was recently honored with the Women’s and Gender Studies Norma Van Dyke Award from the Department of Community and Social Justice Studies. In addition, her research paper entitled “Violence Against Trans Women in America” won the Emerging Scholar award from the New Jersey Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium’s Annual Undergraduate Research Colloquium 2020 essay competition. Constantino is currently interning at the William Paterson University Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and plans to continue her studies in graduate school.
“William Paterson has prepared me for the future by teaching me research, data analysis, critical thinking, and writing skills. The interdisciplinary nature of my majors has also provided me with a holistic and intersectional lens to analyze systems of power and their structural issues,” says Constantino. “Overall, my time at William Paterson has been extremely gratifying. I have made lifelong friends and my professors have been nothing but encouraging of my academic dreams. My education at WP has without a doubt equipped me with the tools necessary to succeed in the real world.”
