Roger Stilling taught in the Appalachian State University English from August 1974 until he retired in 2009. Stilling received his BA degree at Elon College, his MA from the University of South Carolina, and his Ph.D from Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland). Before coming to Appalachian, Stilling taught at the University of South Carolina – Aiken; University College, Dublin (Ireland), and the main campus of the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. At Appalachian State, Dr. Stilling taught classes at every level of the curriculum, from English 1000 to graduate Seminars on William Shakespeare, John Milton, English Renaissance Poetry, and the plays of Eugene O’Neill. A cinema lover, Stilling enjoyed teaching film studies at the introductory and advanced levels. Stilling was also active in many service areas — being the founder of the original Appalachian House off-campus center in Washington DC; resident director of the off-campus centers in Washington, DC and New York City; and Faculty Advocate with the Equity Office (now the Office of Equity, Diversity and Compliance). Stilling was also the first director of the University’s English Department Self-Study under the Auspices of the Association of Departments of English (ADE). Stilling’s scholarship includes a book on English Renaissance drama and a variety of articles, book chapters and conference presentations on topics that included Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, Modern Drama, Science Fiction literature and films and the theoretical contexts for literary interpretation.
A selective list of publications and presentations follows:
BOOK:
Love and Death in Renaissance Tragedy (Louisiana State University Press, 1976)
ARTICLES AND REVIEWS:
”Synge, Health, and Death,” (The Dublin Magazine, 1973). “Shakespeare in Washington,” (The New Republic, 1976). “Suicide and Despair in the Jacobean Drama”, (Shakespeare Quarterly , 1988). “Mystical Healing: Reading Philip K. Dick’s VALIS and Divine Invasion as Metapsychoanalytical Novels," (South Atlantic Review, 1991). “Love, Death, and Healing: Some Psychoanalytic Themes in Robert M.Young’s Extremities” article in Lewis, Leon (ed.) Robert M. Young: Essays on the Films, Jefferson, NC, McFarland and Company, 2005. “Eugene O’Neill”, Dictionary of Literary Biography: Nobel Laureates in Literature. (Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thompson Gale, 2007), pp. 373-394.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
“The Oedipal Triad and the Structure of Drama”, (NEH Seminar, New York University, 1981). “Patriarchal Shadows: The Oedipal Plot and the Illusion of Authority,” (American Theater Association, 1982). “Memory, Rage, and Healing in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”, (Shakespeare Association of America, 1993). “Beyond Reason: Myth, Archetype and the Sacred in Science Fiction Literature and Film,” (South Atlantic MLA, 1995). “Making Friends with Death: Shakespeare, Eternal Wisdom, and Freud’s Three Caskets,” (Shakespeare Association of America, 1997). “New Monsters of the Id: Creativity, Censorship, and the Perverse in the Film Work of H.R. Giger,” (South Atlantic MLA, 1998). “Screening the Dark Fantastic: From HR Giger’s Necronomicon to the Alien Films,” (International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, 1999). “Remembering the Future: Futurology and Prophecy in Science Fiction Film from Metropolis to The Fifth Element”, SAMLA, Nov. 2000. “Legends of the Demiurge: Gnostic Patterns in the Work of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Philip Pullman,” International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, March, 2003.
HONORS:
Stilling was twice selected as recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars. The first was at Princeton University (1977) with Alvin B. Kernan, and the second was at New York University (1981) led by Herbert Blau. In November 2008, Stilling was recognized as an inductee to the College of Arts and Sciences Academy of Outstanding Teachers.
