Lecturer, Social Theory and Practice Program; Faculty Director, East Quad Garden
Virginia Murphy is jointly appointed in the Residential College (Social Theory and Practice) and the Program in the Environment. Professor Murphy teaches and writes about environmental literature, environmental justice, and sustainable food systems. Her research interests focus on how we express our relationship with the environment in literature, narrative, and activism, as well as the myriad ways that our environmental problems present intergenerational challenges that are visited most acutely on poor and minority communities.
Professor Murphy also has a long-standing interest in how we promote sustainable food systems through the local food movement, community gardens, and more holistic approaches to agriculture. She helped create and is the Faculty Director of the East Quad Garden at the Residential College. In 2019, Professor Murphy won the Residential College Inaugural Conference Grant and chaired the highly successful Community of Food, Society & Justice Conference at the University of Michigan.
Professor Murphy has acted as thesis advisor in areas of environmental sustainability, permaculture design and implementation, environmental justice, urban farming, and food security. She serves on the Residential College Executive Committee, and has previously served on the Program in the Environment Advisory Committee and the East Quad Garden Committee. In 2013, the Program in the Environment honored Professor Murphy with its annual Outstanding Instructor award.
Prior to joining the University of Michigan faculty, Professor Murphy taught at American University in the College Writing Program. She earned her graduate degree in English and American Literature from Georgetown University. When she’s not teaching, her interests include running, hiking the mountains of Maine, reading, writing poetry, gardening, and cooking amazing food with her family.
Courses include:
Corn in East Quad! An Experiential Learning Course
American Environmentalism and the Frontier West
Environmental Activism: Citizenship in a Republic
LSA First-Year Seminar: How America Eats in the 21st Century
American Writers and the Environment
The Literature of Environmental and Social Justice
