معرفی
Benjamin Peters is an Associate Professor of Cyber Studies at the University of Tulsa, holding the Hazel Rogers Endowed Chair in Media Studies while serving as Chair of both Media Studies and Film Studies programs. He is jointly appointed in the Kendall College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Engineering & Computer Science, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach to media and technology studies. His academic home resides in the Department of Media Studies where he has developed influential courses on cyber culture, media theory, and digital society.
Peters earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and his M.A. from Stanford University, establishing a strong foundation for his research on the intersections of technology, culture, and society. His educational background informs his unique perspective on media history, particularly regarding Soviet-era technological development and its implications for contemporary digital culture.
As a media scholar, Peters specializes in the relationships between emerging technology, culture, and society, with particular expertise in media theory, new media history, and technology criticism. His research takes a transnational approach with comparative attention to North America, focusing on the geopolitical space between Berlin and Beijing, with an epicenter on Kyiv, Ukraine. He examines how media technologies distribute and concentrate power and knowledge unevenly across different historical and cultural contexts, with special attention to the Soviet century's technological development.
Peters' scholarly output shows a consistent trajectory examining media history through a critical lens, with increasing attention to agricultural media, Russian media theory, and the philosophical implications of digital technologies. His recent work demonstrates growing engagement with farm media studies, transnational media theory, and the ethical dimensions of computational science, while maintaining his foundational interest in Soviet/Russian technological history.
- Outstanding Teaching Award (2023)
- Best Book in Business Technology from Strategy + Business (2021)
- "Public Pick" by Public Books (2021)
- Computer History Museum Prize (2018)
- Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize (2017)
- PROSE Award History of Science, Technology, & Medicine (2017)
As an advisor, Peters has mentored numerous graduate students including Xuenan Cao (Yale postdoctorate candidate), Anna Kalinina (Leuphana University MA candidate), Bo An (Yale PhD candidate), Carlotta Chenoweth (Yale PhD candidate, now at West Point), and Scott Brennen (UNC PhD, Oxford postdoc). His teaching excellence has been recognized with the Outstanding Teaching Award (2023), the university's lifetime career award given to the top 1% of teachers campus-wide, and eleven Most Valuable Professor awards between 2013-2022. Student evaluations consistently rate him highly with averages of 4.4 for course quality and 4.7 for instructor quality (out of 5).
