Ich stamme von der Goldküste.
Benno Wagner studied Journalism at TU Dortmund and Communications at Ruhr University Bochum from 1978 to 1984. His M.A. thesis provided the first comprehensive survey of Aboriginal Australian print media. In 1985 and 1986 he was based at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, to conduct research on the transformation of oral Aboriginal stories to script. In 1987 Wagner joined the Siegen Graduate School of Literature and Communication where, in 1990, he received his doctoral degree for a thesis on the impact of German print media rhetoric on dissident political movements between 1977 and 1984. From 1989 to 1995 he served as the Managing Director of the Siegen Graduate School, and in 1993/94 he held a JFK Memorial Fellowship at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. In 1998 he achieved habilitation with a thesis on the nexus of risk, insurance, and writing in Kafka's literature. Wagner has been teaching in the Department of Literature, Media and Culture of Siegen University from 1999 to 2008, and in the German Department of Ruhr University Bochum from 2008 to 2011. In recent years he has been teaching as a Visiting Professor at Tamkang University (New Taipei City), and at Chinese Culture University (Taipei), where he also served as Chair of Department. In August 2013 Wagner received a Professor certificate from the Taiwan Ministry of Education. From 2014 to 2016 he taught in the German Department of the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). After the Hangzhou G20 summit he joined the School of International Studies of Zhejiang University as a Full Professor in German Studies, and a Special Adviser in the School's Global Engagement Program.