Mark Ingram is Professor of French Transnational Studies. His doctorate from N.Y.U. is a joint degree in cultural anthropology and French studies. Moving between these two fields has remained important to his scholarship and his teaching, which includes courses on French language, French and francophone societies and cultures, and the anthropology of Europe (SOA 238). His French Special Topics courses (FR 358, FR 433) explore aspects of cultural change in the francophone world through consideration of new perspectives from artists, scholars, journalists, and others (including cooks and other culinary specialists!). Generally, his research addresses the politics of the arts, as in his first book (Rites of the Republic. ‘Citizens theatre’ and the politics of culture in southern France). He has helped organize on-campus residencies for French theatre artists. He also enjoys teaching about French food and cooking, both on campus and during study abroad in short-term Intensive Courses Abroad (FR 272Y).
Marseille has figured prominently in my recent research. With Kathryn Kleppinger, I edited The Marseille Mosaic. A Mediterranean City at the Crossroads of Cultures (Berghahn, 2023), an interdisciplinary volume drawing on anthropology, sociology, geography, art history, and cinema studies, among other fields. The book explores the history and contemporary creativity shaping this fascinating city and its own distinctive approach to the waves of immigrants, refugees, and repatriates that have recast postcolonial Europe. The book includes a chapter I co-wrote with Dr. Rebecca Free (Theatre) about the public outreach work of Marseillais theatres. My current research examines environmental urbanism in Marseille through a focus on activist arts projects that integrate social justice and ecological concerns.
Books
2023 (Co-edited with Kathryn Kleppinger) The Marseille Mosaic. A Mediterranean City at the Crossroads of Cultures, Berghahn Press.
2011 (Ethnographic monograph) Rites of the Republic. ‘Citizens theatre’ and the politics of culture in southern France. University of Toronto Press.
Selected book chapters
2023 (with Kathryn Kleppinger) “Introduction. The Marseille Mosaic” in The Marseille Mosaic. A Mediterranean City at the Crossroads of Cultures, eds. M. Ingram, K. Kleppinger, Berghahn Press, pp. 1-26.
2023 (with Rebecca Free) “The Outreach Work of Marseillais Theatres hors les murs” in The Marseille Mosaic. A Mediterranean City at the Crossroads of Cultures, eds. M. Ingram, K. Kleppinger, Berghahn Press, pp. 250-71.
2021 "Bridges and Fault Lines in the Mediterranean City: Neighbourhood Memory in an Urban Walk in Marseille” in Urban Bridges, Global Capital(s): Trans-Mediterranean Francosphères, eds. Claire Launchbury and Megan MacDonald, Liverpool University Press, pp. 135-154.
Selected journal articles
2024 “Marseille: Diversity Beyond the Myths” (with Kathryn Kleppinger), States. A Creative Magazine by Villa Albertine, #2, pp. 97-104.
2022 “Seeking an intersectional ‘convergence des luttes’ in the occupied theatres of Marseille”, CFC Intersections. Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 101-18.
2019 (Review Essay) “An Anthropology of the Contemporary in France”, a review of Sophie Chevalier, ed., Anthropology at the Crossroads: The View from France (UK: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2015), in French Politics, Culture & Society, Vol. 37, No. 3, Winter: 108–122.
2018 (with Rebecca Free) “Collaborative Mapping to Enhance Local Engagement and Interdisciplinary Dialogue in a Short-term Study Abroad Program”, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing. Volume 12 Issue 1, Page 5-14.
2016 "Emplacement and the politics of heritage in low-income neighborhoods of Marseille" in International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 22 No.2 Feb/Mar , pp. 117-130.
2010 “Promoting Europe through 'Unity in Diversity': Avignon as European Capital of Culture in 2000” in Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp. 14-25.
2009 “The Artist and the City in ‘Euro-Mediterranean’ Marseille: Redefining State Cultural Policy in an Era of Transnational Governance” in City and Society: Journal of the Society for Urban Anthropology, Vol. 21, Issue 2, pp. 268-92.
2005 “Recasting the Language Requirement through Study Abroad: A cultural immersion program in Avignon", Foreign Language Annals, Summer, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 211-222.
Selected commissioned reviews
2023 (with Rebecca Free) Trétaux dans le Massif: Circulations et mobilités professionnelles théâtrales en province des Lumières à la Belle Époque by Cyril Triolaire, Clermont-Ferrand: Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal (2022), in H-France Review Vol. 23 (November), No. 186, 1-5.
2021 Adventure Capital. Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris by Julie Kleinman. University of California Press (2019), in Contemporary French Civilization, 46, (1), 113–116.
2018 Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theater in Twenty-First-Century Paris, by Emine Fişek (2017) in Modern Language Notes, 133(5):1427-1431.
Selected academic presentations
2024 (with Rebecca Free) “Marseille: laboratory of new artistic perspectives on the environment?” for 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, Philadelphia, Feb. 23.
2023 (with Kathryn Kleppinger) The Marseille Mosaic: A Mediterranean City at the Crossroads of Cultures Discussants: Sylvaine Guyot, William Poulin-Deltour, NYU Institute of French Studies, Oct. 16.
2023 “The Marseille Mosaic” A roundtable with French and U.S. contributors (K. Kleppinger, E. Dorier, A. Bousmah, F. Lextrait, J-C Sevin, N. Maisetti, V. Geisser, and T. Shepard. MucemLab (research center at the Mucem: Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations), Marseille, June 21.
2022 “Reconfiguring urban landscapes in Marseille through arts-centered environmental activism”, in panel (European Activisms And Arts) for the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, Seattle, November 10.
2019 (with Rebecca Free) “Temporal interventions: public space and the everyday in site-specific theatre in Marseille” for panel “The City as a Work of Art: Examining Artistic Influences on Urban Transformation”, AAA Annual Meeting, Vancouver, November.
2017 “The problems and promise of collaborative digital maps: exploring new modes of displaying knowledge”, Society for Visual Anthropology Roundtable: “Visual Matters: The Role of anthropology in producing and analyzing visual material”, AAA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November.
2015 “Ethnographic autobiography and the performance of neighborhood identity in the quartiers nord of Marseille” in the “Vital Memories” Performance Studies Focus Group, Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference, Montreal, July 29.
2012 “Hearing the Mediterranean In Performance: The Politics of Street Theatre In Marseille”. Session: Sensing the Political: Materiality, Aesthetics, and Embodiment. AAA, San Francisco, November.
American Anthropological Association
Society for the Anthropology of Europe
Editorial Board for the journal CFC Intersections
Anonymous reviewing has included anthropology grant proposals for the National Science Foundation, and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec, Société et Culture (Quebec Province Research Fund), a book manuscript for the University of Toronto Press, and article submissions to Anthropological Quarterly, American Ethnologist, CFC Intersections, Contemporary French Civilization, European Urban and Regional Studies, French Politics, Culture and Society, International Journal of Cultural Policy, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and the Journal of Mediterranean Studies.