University of Pittsburgh Library System

Ariana conducted research on scripts from the 1960s to the 2000s in order to analyze the role of female tropes in the horror genre, specifically the tropes of the “bitch” (the mean girl) and the “slut” (the promiscuous woman). A specific script that she focused on in her archival work was 1976’s Carrie, written by Lawrence D. Cohen, which centers around the “girl next door” Carrie White using her telepathy for violence because of her relentless torment from the “mean girl” Chris Hargensen. Ariana’s experience researching this script and many others was in the University Library System’s “Horror Scripts and Ephemera Collection,” which houses multiple scripts and production materials spanning different eras of horror. The original copies of scripts as far back as the 1970s, such as Halloween, were fascinating to examine because of the humanity and history that remains within each script in terms of the writing, marginalia, and revised drafts. Other more modern scripts that she investigated include Ginger Snaps, which rewrites horror’s reinforcement of the tropes while poking fun at the genre. Script pages and casting materials from Carrie and Ginger Snaps are found in her exhibit displayed on the interactive digital wall in Hillman Library, where casting materials from Carrie are found (including production notes that describe Carrie and Chris’s characteristics) as well as a script page from Ginger Snaps where the main character (a female werewolf) overtly jokes about the tropes of women in horror and how they can use those tropes to their advantage.

Zoë’s ASRA project revolved around a collection of European book and manuscript leaves from the 14th to early 17th century. This collection of leaves is often utilized as a teaching collection by university faculty, but the collection lacks explanation concerning what many of these leaves are and where they came from. Zoë focused primarily on printed materials within the collection with a specific focus on printed books of hours. Her main goals were to investigate the provenance of these leaves and to expand on the information that accompanies them in their folders and the collection’s finding aid. She aims to expand this context in order to help students, faculty, and other researchers to better understand these leaves and book history more broadly.

During the course of her research she was able to connect a leaf titled, “Flemish Book of Hours, 1533,” with leaves at Stanford University and the University of Toronto. Stanford’s leaves are still bound in the original book and they acknowledge the connection between their leaves and the leaves at the University of Toronto, which were once part of this book. She concluded that the leaf in the University of Pittsburgh’s collection was once part of the book that Stanford’s collection holds. She hopes to continue making connections like this one for other leaves in the collection in order to tell their full stories.

Zoë’s work on her project will continue during future semesters and she hopes to keep expanding on what we are able to discover about this collection. As her research evolves she will update the collection’s finding aid with new information. In addition to presenting her research at the Archival Scholars in Conversation event and contributing to the ASRA digital exhibition, she presented her work at the first annual Medieval and Renaissance Studies Undergraduate Research Mixer.

I used the George A. Romero Archival Collection to take a look at studio interference in George Romero’s films, with a specific focus on Monkey Shines. To do this, I mainly used production materials like different drafts of the script, both the ones from original writer Michael Stewart and the later drafts that were written by Romero himself. I also looked at the correspondence between Romero, his producers Peter Grunwald and Charles Evans, and Orion. This helped to reveal a general timeline of when, how, and why relations between Romero and Orion began to strain. While researching, I also took a look at the production materials for Romero’s film Bruiser, but ultimately decided to cut what I found for the final display since it wasn’t quite as interesting as what I found with Monkey Shines, and the stuff I did find didn’t have any interesting production materials in the archive I could use for the display. Another kind of production material I ended up using that I hadn’t expected to find going into the project was the test screening results, which ended up explaining the ways in which the ending of the film was dividing audiences, and why Romero was so adamant about fighting to keep the ending. Though by the end of my research, I was only able to get a rough picture of the breakdown in the relationship between Romero and the studio, I was able to find more than enough material to paint a vivid picture of Romero’s frustration.

Suhaila’s ASRA project delves into Archives & Special Collections (A&SC)’s wealth of primary sources from the period of Second Wave feminism. The Arlen Specter Senatorial Papers offer valuable insight into the dynamics and competing interests that shaped debates over pornography and censorship. Senator Arlen Specter represented Pennsylvania for 30 years, collecting extensive correspondence, legislation, and reports on America’s most contentious issues over three decades. Within these files, possible answers to the question of what happened to the anti-pornography movement are demystified.

The Specter files, particularly the materials within legislative assistant Bruce King’s collection, include correspondence with organizations such as Women Against Sexist Violence in Pornography and Media (WASV/PM) and Women Against Pornography (WAP), offering valuable insight into how pornography and erotica were specifically understood and defined. The Susanna Downie Papers document topics of interest to the feminist movement through the records of prominent activist Susanna Downie. Downie operated in Pittsburgh and was transformative for the women’s movement, organizing National Organization for Women (NOW) chapters locally, as well as contributing more broadly through her role in the Women’s Feminist Network.

These documents paint a portrait of a vibrant movement, one in active conflict with law enforcement, legislative bodies, and the broader institutional system. The initiatives of anti-pornography feminists are supported through evidence, including testimony from women facing childhood abuse by the porn industry, along with studies by psychologists on the negative effects of pornography on the brain and on violent behavior. However, when delving into the perspectives of other pornographers, the cleavages that led to the movement’s disillusionment are revealed. 

The magazine On Our Backs, a play on the publication Off Our Backs, features written adult content, queer pornography, alongside personal narratives of creators who feel liberated rather than oppressed by the porn industry. These narratives, alongside the satirical presidential campaign of Larry Flynt, portray an image of an incredibly complex movement plagued by diverging interests and controversy over addressing the issue at a legislative level. The work itself gives the reader a glimpse into the nebulous question: What should we do about porn?

Monsters have often served as mirrors reflecting cultural anxieties, desires, and hierarchies. Among these, vampires and werewolves stand out as two of the most enduring figures in Western literature and media. Vampires traditionally enjoy aristocratic refinement and privilege, while werewolves are marked by animalistic impulses and proximity to the lower-classes.Why are vampires pale? Have they always had such close proximity to the upper-class? Why are werewolves so uncontrollable? Why have these two monsters been rivals for the past century? 

These are the questions that propelled Genevieve to research the class representations of monsters in 20th century horror scripts archived in The University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Scripts and Ephemera collections. Concentrating on vampires and werewolves, she explored the difference in how both monsters were portrayed in media and how this reflected societal values and cultural anxieties towards different socio-economic classes.

Focus areas include depictions of feeding, transformation, and methods of destruction as related to class markers like purity, control, excess, and refinement. Through this research, vampires and werewolves are reexamined not just as vessels of fear or desire, but as symbols of class distinctions and how they have evolved across the 1900s. The scripts analyzed include; Dracula (1931), The Wolf Man (1941), Lost Boys (1987), and Ginger Snaps (2000). She also inspected ephemera such as a Wolf Man production still and a Fangoria magazine from the 1980s. Her research has culminated in a digital exhibit featuring four curated items and a few of the conclusions found while she underwent her research.