Headshot of Ben Murphy

Ben Murphy

Assistant Teaching Professor of English

Department: English

Office and address: Alamance Building, Office 305E 2338 Campus Box Elon, NC 27244

Phone number: (336) 278-5623

Professional Expertise

African American literature; Black Studies; genre fiction; film; writing & composition

News & Notes

Education

Ph.D., English, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

B.A., Humanities & Creative Writing, Houghton College 

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Research Articles

"Race, Crowds, and Resistance in Lovecraft’s Country: From Poe’s Old Old Weird to Victor LaValle’s New Black Gothic" Studies in American Fiction (Forthcoming: Fall 2025)

“‘Multiplied without Number:’ Lynching, Statistics, and Visualization in Ida B. Wells, Mark Twain, and W. E. B. Du Bois.” American Literature 93.2 (2021): 195-226

“Not So New Materialism: Homeostasis Revisited.” Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology 27.1 (2019): 1-36

"Exceptional Infidelity: James Dickey’s Deliverance, Film Adaptation, and the Postsouthern.” Mississippi Quarterly 69.2 (2018): 206-225

Recent Book Reviews: 

Of Black Study by Joshua Myers (Pluto Press) Full Stop                            

Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier (Tin House) Full Stop                                                      

In the Black Fantastic ed. by Ekow Eshun (MIT Press) Full Stop                                                 

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (NYRB) Full Stop                           

Service Activities

Faculty Advisor, The Liberal Arts Forum (Elon University)