John P. Murphy

Chairperson/Associate Professor

French

Contact

Email

jpmurphy@gettysburg.edu

Phone

(717) 337 - 6873

Box

Campus Box 0411

Address

McKnight Hall
Room 32
300 North Washington St.
Gettysburg, PA 17325-1400

Education

PhD New York University, 2009
MA New York University, 2003
BA Georgetown University, 2000

Academic Focus

Contemporary French culture and society in anthropological perspective

I hold a joint PhD in French Studies and Anthropology from New York University. My teaching and research focus on contemporary French culture and society.

My first book Yearning to Labor: Youth, Unemployment, and Social Destiny in Urban France (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) chronicles the everyday struggle of a group of young people living in a French banlieue as they confront more than triple the national unemployment rate. Drawing attention to a global trend toward neoliberal reform—a shift whose deleterious consequences fall disproportionately on the youngest and the least qualified in France—I ask how the young men and women at the center of my study make sense of the inequality they face. By tracing how they position themselves and others as they look for work and attempt to project themselves into the future, I explore how subjectivities are fashioned and refashioned through a complex interplay of local and extralocal forces. Ultimately, this book aims to shed light on some of the mechanisms underlying the shifting inequalities of condition that are broadly part of the human experience at this beginning of the twenty-first century.

My next project tackles similar questions relating to the construction of self and other, albeit through a different lens: frozen food. France is often associated with visions of fine dining and expectations about culinary prowess, and a great deal of scholarly attention has been devoted to exploring this relationship. However, France is also home to a thriving frozen-food industry. It is estimated that the average person in France eats about eighty pounds of frozen food every year, and in a recent survey nearly 98 percent of French households reported buying frozen food on a regular basis. In 2014, Picard Surgelés, a premium French frozen-food company, dethroned Amazon as France’s “favorite” retailer. What, I ask, might investigating how frozen food is marketed, sold, and consumed in France tell us about such culturally derived distinctions as gender, social class, and age? More broadly, given the international scope of the networks linking frozen-food producers, distributors, and consumers, how could studying frozen food illuminate evolving notions of what it means to be French in today’s increasingly globalized, pluralistic world?

Courses Taught

Overview of the various literal and figurative revolutions in France following the Revolution of 1789. Course examines the many political changes from the rise of the French Republic to the political, social, demographic, economic, intellectual and artistic developments in the multicultural France of the 21st century, including its place and role in the expanding European Union. Prerequisite: French 300. Required of all majors. Offered in the spring.
Study of the relationship between food and national identity in the French context. Through close readings of historical, sociological, and anthropological texts, as well as analysis of debates surrounding recent food controversies (rising obesity rates, genetically modified foods, regionally certified “authentic” foods), this course aims to develop students’ understanding of important anthropological theory in the study of food (taste, consumption, gifts), while building their awareness of the role food plays in the construction and expression of individual and group identity. Prerequisite: FREN 310. FREN 315 and ANTH 217 are cross-listed.
Intensive study of a particular aspect of French literature, civilization, or culture to be determined by the instructor. Past offerings include The Art of Emile Zola, The Image of Women in French Literature: A Feminist Perspective, The Gaze and Self-Image in French Film, 1959-89 and Postcolonial Immigrations in France. Course is for seniors (in the final semester) to complete undergraduate work in French. Prerequisites: Limited to seniors, except with permission of instructor and approval of department chairperson. Offered every spring.
Food is always about more than just what’s on our plates. It’s a medium of communication used as much to drive wedges among us as it is to foster feelings of community. It’s thus no wonder that food often incites conflict and debate. This seminar examines some of the controversies surrounding food by critically considering the following questions: How did French cuisine come to dominate the global elite food scene in the first half of the 20th century and why is its importance receding today? What explains the rise of foodie culture and what role does it play in maintaining or producing new forms of social distinction? How have industrial methods of food production and processing changed what and how we eat and what are the consequences for our health and for the future of our planet? In what ways has home cooking evolved in recent decades and what does this evolution tell us about gender roles? How does the American food safety net work and in what ways has its implementation shaped definitions of human value and worth? What is culinary tourism? How might this phenomenon reflect or express an entrenchment of local, regional or national identities? Inversely, how might it promote new forms of cosmopolitanism?