Faculty Profiles

Dr. Adam Benn

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. English, Carleton University, Ottawa ON
• M.A. English, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon SK
• B.A. English, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon SK

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Adam Benn began teaching at Medicine Hat College in 2023. He teaches composition, literature, and GNED courses. Most of his week is spent with students who have been told that writing is a talent you either have or you don't, and his first job is to take that idea apart. Writing is a craft, and like a musical instrument, its scales and components can be practiced and mastered.

The best part of teaching at MHC, for Dr. Benn, is the classroom discussion. His classroom runs on open conversation, and he enjoys watching students develop a genuine appetite for discussing literature, film, history, and art. Because the college is small, he also gets to watch that appetite grow across a student's full program, and he prides himself on a cordial, welcoming atmosphere in his classrooms.

Dr. Benn holds a PhD in English, and his research sits where literature meets cyberculture, spanning game studies and the digital humanities. He has published on labour in esports and on video games as narrative forms, and has designed alternate reality games for Canadian Heritage and the Electronic Literature Organization. His current research focuses on the hidden workforce behind games, social media, bot farms, and AI systems.

His favourite subjects to teach are speculative fiction, cyberpunk, and American literature, with authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Kim Stanley Robinson, and James Baldwin.

Outside of the college, Dr. Benn keeps a small menagerie of critters at home and enjoys reading, gaming (both analogue and digital), theatre, and concerts.