Zack Furness

Zack Furness, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago. He’s taught at Columbia College since the fall of 2007. He is also the Director of the Cultural Studies Minor program at Columbia College Chicago.

After completing his BA in English through the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State University, Dr. Furness attended graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh where he earned MA and PhD degrees in Communication and an MA certificate in Women's Studies.

Dr. Furness’s primary interests in cultural studies lie in the intersections of communication, geography, technology, mobility, and radical politics. His first book, entitled One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility (Temple University Press, 2010), explores the cultural and political significance of bike advocacy, everyday cycling, and automobile transportation in the United States from the 1890s through the present day.

In addition to his book, he has been an active writer and editor with Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, and he has written for various academic and non-academic publications, including Mobilities, Social Epistemology, Punk Planet, Bitch Magazine, and three edited volumes: Cycling--Philosophy for Everyone: A Philosophical Tour de Force (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Handbook of Critical Media Literacy (Peter Lang Publishing, 2007), and Collective Action: A Bad Subjects Anthology (Pluto Press, 2004). As of 2011, he is editing a collection of essays entitled Punkademics (Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2011), working on a book about bike advocacy for Microcosm Publishing (2011), co-editing a collection of essays on the National Football League, and authoring chapters in two forthcoming books on Routledge press (Handbook of Mobilities and Routledge Companion to Alternative Organisation).

Prior to joining the Cultural Studies faculty at Columbia College Chicago, Dr Furness taught a variety of courses in media and communication at the University of Pittsburgh (1999-2006) and Shoreline Community College (2006-2007), just outside of Seattle, WA. He views teaching as an integral part of the struggle for social and environmental justice, and his goal as a teacher is to help students take an active role in their education and, ultimately, in their communities. He strongly believes in Paulo Freire's notion of education as the practice of freedom.

When he's not teaching or staring at a computer screen, Dr. Furness enjoys spending time with his wife, riding bikes, walking his dog, Lexi, and wading through cultural histories of technology. He has played in a number of punk bands throughout the last 14 years, including Voice in the Wire, Teddy Duchamp's Army, Cityhands, and, most recently, Everything is Ruined. 

Contact Dr. Furness:

Mail:
Dr. Zack Furness
Columbia College Chicago
Department of HHSS
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL
60605

Phone:
312.369.8791

Email:
zfurness@colum.edu