Hilary Lithgow specializes in Victorian and early Modernist British literature, as well as the literature of war from World War I to today. She is especially interested in the role of story-telling in making sense of human experience and the effects of impersonality and trauma on literary style. Her current work focuses on contemporary literature of war, the military-civilian divide, and the ways in which people are changed when their moral codes are violated. Professor Lithgow is also interested in the work that literature and the humanities can do outside the university and from 2014-2017 she co-facilitated Vets For Words, a book group for military veterans administered by the North Carolina Humanities Council with support from the NEH.