About the Project
This website is the final product of a First-Year Monroe Scholar Research Project conducted by Elena Ceravalo, mentored by Dr. Jay Watkins, and funded by the Charles Center at the College of William and Mary. It's home page was presented at the William and Mary 2022 Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium on September 30, 2022. This project aims to study the meaning of the Mothman, not the existance of it, and how this meaning has changed over time.
About the Author
Elena Ceravalo
I'm an undergraduate student at William & Mary, class of 2025, and member of the Monroe Scholar Program. I plan to major in Computer Science and minor in Biology. This project was inspired by my personal love of urban legends and the History 150 course "Our Monsters, Our Selves," taught by Doctor Jay Watkins.
This is the second website I have built; the first being part of a project for a 3 day hackathon. In the end of this project, I wish I had more time to learn web development along side reseraching the Mothman. I hope to update this website and improve the quality of it in the future. However, I think the style of MothMyth meshes well with the style of the Mothman narrative, mirroring that of early 2000s cryptozoology websites.
Special Thanks
Thank you to the College of William & Mary, the Monroe Scholar Program, the Charles Center, and Dr. Jay Watkins for helping make this project possible. Without your assistance, I wouldn't have been able to spend the time needed to make this a reality. Thank you to my friends and family who listened to me talk endlessly about the Mothman and the significance of urban legends. You didn't have to listen the whole time, but I appreciated it. Thanks to the archivists and historians at the West Virginia Cultural Center, my tour guide for the Mothman Bus Tour, WildStar Press, and the Mothman Museum for helping with my research and helping remind me why I wanted to study the Mothman in the first place.
Thank you again to everyone who made this project possible!