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Shirley Cruz had long been interested in Gothic literature. But a course she took during her first quarter at UCLA ignited her fascination with the topic and led her to a deeper exploration.

Cruz transferred to UCLA from Antelope Valley College in 2024. And in 2025, with funding from the UCLA/Keck Humanistic Inquiry Undergraduate Research Awards program, she began work on a paper called “Still in the Casket: Queer Gendered Bias in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ and Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla.’” She expects to complete the project this quarter and graduate from UCLA in June with a degree in English and a minor in professional writing.

In an interview with the UCLA Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Cruz explained what attracted her to the subject matter in the first place, the benefits of collaborating with her faculty advisor, and why the project has opened portals she didn’t expect to encounter.

How did you first get interested in your research project?

I first got interested in my research project after taking a class during my first quarter here at UCLA titled “Literary Cities: Dublin.” One of the required readings for the class was “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, which brought me back to my longstanding interest in Gothic literature and in turn led me down a rabbit hole of other vampiric literature that has impacted our culture.

One of the other vampiric works that was rarely spoken on was “Carmilla” by Sheridan Le Fanu. This disparity in scholarship written on “Carmilla” compared to “Dracula” is the focal point of the hole I found in research that I am choosing to explore.

Read the full interview.

Pictured above: Shirley Cruz’s research topic began to take shape when she recognized the disparity in scholarship about “Carmilla” and “Dracula.”

Photo Courtesy of Shirley Cruz (portrait).