Hello. My name is Zack Furness and I am Associate Professor of Communications at Penn State University’s Greater Allegheny campus, where I also serve as the Communications Program Coordinator. I am the author of One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility (Temple University Press, 2010), editor of Punkademics (Minor Compositions & Autonomedia, 2012), and co-editor of The NFL: Critical and Cultural Perspectives (Temple University Press, 2014). Over the past two decades, I have contributed to a number of scholarly books and journals as well as numerous web publications, podcasts, zines, and magazines including Pittsburgh Magazine, Bitch, Tropics of Meta, The Battleground, Souciant, Punk Planet, The End of Sport, and People & Things. I was also a longtime contributing editor to Bad Subjects, one of the pioneering publications on the internet that featured accessible cultural criticism devoted to “the politics of everyday life.”
My work as both a researcher and a teacher draws upon a web of influences that include communication and cultural studies, cultural geography and urban history, science and technology studies, radical politics, alternative media, and punk countercultures. I performed in punk bands and other musical projects for nearly 20 years and my current research is all related to music in some way. During the 2018-2019 academic year, I began that work as Visiting Scholar in the Department of Music at the University of Pittsburgh, while on sabbatical from Penn State.
Links to my various publications, courses, and talks are accessible through the menu above, and an updated copy of my full academic CV is available upon request. If you want to get in touch with me directly, please send an email to: zackfurness [at] psu.edu.
Thanks for stopping by,
-z