Benjamin Firgens
Graduate Assistant in Communication Arts and Sciences
316 Sparks BuildingUniversity Park , PA 16802
Email:
baf214@psu.edu
Education:
- B.A., Ripon College, 2014
- M.A., Penn State University, 2016
- Ph.D., Penn State University, anticipated 2020
Biography:
Benjamin Firgens studies rhetorical influences on the reciprocal relationship between publics, technology, and social imagination. His current research focuses on how technologies diffuse into society through debates about those technologies’ meaning and purpose. His master’s thesis examined 20th-century debates over aviation’s possibilities and liabilities, and how those debates settled the vocabulary with which Americans imagine and use human flight. He has taught or TA'd CAS100A, 100C, 175, and 201.
Advisor: Dr. Stephen H. Browne