Russell A. Potter (born 1960) is an American writer and college professor, and guitarist. His work encompasses hip hop culture, popular music, and the history of British exploration of the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

in the nineteenth century, as well as the material in the courses he teaches in English literature at Rhode Island College. His books include ''Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism'' (1995) and ''Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture'', 1818-1875 (2007), as well as a novel, ''Pyg: The Memoirs of a Learned Pig'' (2011). He teaches at

Rhode Island College Rhode Island College (RIC) is a public college in Providence, Rhode Island. The college was established in 1854 as the Rhode Island State Normal School, making it the second oldest institution of higher education in Rhode Island after Brown Uni ...

, where he is editor of the Arctic Book Review. He also worked as a consultant on, and appears in, the

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...

documentary Arctic Passage (2006). In 2021, Potter's albums were reissued on vinyl LPs.

Biography

Potter was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

in 1960. He attended St. John's Lutheran School, Gilmour Academy, and the Friends School in Cleveland (later the School on Magnolia). In 1979, he founded the Black Snake record label, on which he released two albums of his own solo guitar compositions, as well as a 45 rpm single of a bluegrass version of

Devo Devo (, originally ) is an American Rock music, rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark Mothersbaugh, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Bob) and the Casales (Gerald ...

's "

Mongoloid Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms ...

" by the Hotfoot Quartet. He later attended

Goddard College Goddard College is a progressive education private liberal arts low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and gra ...

and

The Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

; he earned his Ph.D. in

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1991. He lives in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

. He is a professor at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. He has developed courses in English on several topics, including literature in Victorian England. He has posted material on that era, about an early detective and his representation in ''

Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and ...

'', a novel by Charles Dickens.

Books

*''Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-hop and the Politics of Postmodernism'', SUNY Press 1995 () *''Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875'', University of Washington Press 2007 () *''Pyg: The Memoirs of a Learned Pig'', Canongate Books 2011 () * ''Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search'', McGiill-Queen's University Press 2016 ()

References

External links

Rhode Island College webpage
* * 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists 1960 births American male novelists Brown University alumni Evergreen State College alumni Goddard College alumni Living people Novelists from Ohio Syracuse University alumni Writers from Cleveland {{US-novelist-1960s-stub