Rank
Instructor

Educational Background
MA English, Marshall University, 2013
BA English and Sociology, Concord University, 2011

Interests and Specializations
Narrative Theory; Trauma Literatures; Video Games Studies, particularly video games and history; the Horror Genre; and Holocaust Studies

About
Prof. Lilly’s research explores texts that prompt us to rethink the limits of the unthinkable, the impossible, and the unknowable. He is currently drafting a book project—Avatars of Auschwitz: Video Game Holocausts and Holocaust Video Games—that studies the controversy and censorship of the Holocaust in modern video games.

In teaching, he regularly offers ENG 201 “Pop Culture, Mass Media, and the Undead,” which his students kindly refer to as “the zombie class,” but vampires are a key part of it, too. In the class, students develop writing and rhetorical thinking skills by examining how the walking and living dead inspire intelligent new ways of understanding their pre-zombie/vampire apocalypse world. He also teaches ENG 201 “Pop Culture, Mass Media, and Mass Violence,” in which his students study popular mass violence cases spanning Columbine to the present to investigate how toxic masculinity, misogyny, and other systemic triggers push many instances of mass murder beyond firearms or mental health issues. Outside of ENG 201, Prof. Lilly teaches ENG 200 Texting the World and ENG 101 Beginning Composition.

Selected Publications
“Edgar Allan Poe’s The (Unnatural) Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation 48 (Forthcoming 2015)

“Trauma, Memory, and Imagination in Paul Hornschemeier’s Mother, Come Home.” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies (Forthcoming 2015/16)