Curriculum Vitae

Russell A. Potter
 

Professor of English

English Department
Rhode Island College
Providence RI 02908
(401) 456-8652

rpotter@ric.edu
rpklc@etal.uri.edu
 
 
 

I. Education

Ph.D. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1991.

M.A. Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 1987.

B.A. The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, 1983.
 
 

II. Positions Held

July 2005 - present: Professor of English, Rhode Island College

July 1999 July 2005: Associate Professor of English, Rhode Island College

September 1995 - July 1999: Assistant Professor of English, Rhode Island College

September 1991 - May 1995: Assistant Professor of English, Colby College
 

III. Scholarship and Professional Work
 
 

A. Documentary Work

B. Books

Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875, Seattle and London: University of Washington Press; Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.

Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

C. Contributions to Books

"Arctic," entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, edited by Peter N. Stearns, forthcoming in 2008 from Oxford University Press.

"The Future is History: Hip-hop in the Aftermath of (Post)Modernity," chapter in The Resisting Muse: Popular Music and Social Protest, edited by Ian Peddie (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2006).

"Open Polar Sea," "Sir John Franklin," "Lady Jane Franklin," and "Sir John Ross," entries in The Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. Mark Nutall (NY: Routledge, 2004).

"Soul to Hip-Hop," chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, ed. Simon Frith, William Straw, and John Street. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001

"Authorship" -- chapter in Unspun: The Web, Society, and Culture, ed. Thomas Swiss & Andrew Herman, New York University Press, 2001.

"Arctic Spectacles: Nineteenth-Century Visions of the North." In Visions of the North: The North in Film, published in 1999 by Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada.

"Race," chapter in Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, edited by Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1999.

"Not the Same: Race, Repetition and Difference in Hip-Hop and Dance Music," in Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Theory, ed. Thomas Swiss, John Sloop, and Andrew Herman (Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1997).

Entries for "Queen Latifah," "Public Enemy," "Flavor Flav," "Ice Cube," and "Ice T," in the African-American Culture volume of The Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Culture (New York: Gale Research, 1996).
 
 

D. Articles in Periodicals

With Jon Hauss: "Geographica Incognita."  New Orleans Review,Vol. 25, No. 4, Winter 1999/2000.

With Douglas Wamsley: "The Sublime yet Awful Grandeur: The Arctic Panoramas of Elisha Kent Kane." The Polar Record 35:194 [July 1999] (Cambridge University Press).

"L'objet X: Performing Race in a Postmodern World." Literature and Psychology, vol. 41 no. 4 (1995).

"The Image Explodes: The Ideology of the Eikonic." Nomad: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, Number 6 (Spring 1994).

"Edward Schizohands: The Postmodern Gothic Body." Postmodern Culture, vol. 2 no. 3 (May, 1992). http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.592/potter.592

"Chaucer and the Authority of Language: The Politics and Poetics of the Vernacular in Late Medieval England." Assays, vol. VI, 1991.

"Political Chaucer: Heresy, Sedition and the Vernacular Tradition of Dissent, 1400-1550." Hwæt! vol. 1 no. 1 (Fall 1989).

E. Papers, Panels, and Conferences

"Showmen and Explorer-Showmen on the Panoramic Stage: The Arctic in the American Imagination, 1854-1870," invited paper, North by Degree Conference on Arctic Exploration, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, May 22-24 2008.

"The Literary Legacy of Francis Leopold McClintock: The Voyage of the Fox in Arctic Seas and its readers," invited paper, McClintock Winter School, Dundalk Historical Museum, Dundalk, Ireland, January 18th, 2008.

"Arctic Spectacular," Velaslavasay Panorama, Los Angeles, California, January 4th and 5th, 2008.

"Victorian Virtual Reality: Arctic Panoramas in the Nineteenth Century," invited lecture, Bates College, November 27th, 2007.

"Utility versus Conquest: The Ends of British Artic Exploration." Inaugural lecture, Center for Public Policy Lecture Series, Rhode Island College, February 28th, 2006.

"'More instruction and amusement in an hour, than can be gained by months of reading': The Panorama and Visual Truth in the Mid-19th Century." Sight Lines: New England American Studies Association, September 23, 2005, Worcester, Mass.

"Perilous Adventures, Wonderful Discoveries, and Singular Phenomena' -- American Panoramas of the Arctic Regions, 1855-1863," invited paper, International Panorama Conference, Hunter College, New York, November 12, 2004.

Panelist, discussion session on the uses of technology in teaching Victorian Studies, Northeast Victorian Studies Association, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 6, 2003.

"Vernacular Technologies: Folk Music in the Age of Digital Reproduction," Invited lecture, Pearl Union Library Project, Mitchell Library, Glasgow Scotland, June 1, 2002.

"'The Terrible Aspects of the Frigid Zone' - The Arctic in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture." Invited lecture, part of a series accompanying the exhibition "Arctic Diary: Paintings and Photographs of William Bradford," Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, February 17 - May 5, 2002.

"Representing the Arctic Sublime: The Panoramic Voyages of Dr. Kane, 1855-1863," American Literature Association, Boston, Massachusetts, May 26, 2001.

Introduced talk by Kenn Harper, author of Give Me My Father's Body: The Story of Minik, The New York Eskimo, Brown University Bookstore, April 2000.

Panelist, discussion session following lecture by Dr. S. Allen Counter on the legacy of Matthew Henson and Arctic exploration, Rhode Island College, October 1998.

"Arctic Spectacles: Visions of the North in Panoramas, 1820-1874." Conference paper, "Visions of the North: The North in Film," Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, May 15, 1998

Invited panelist, First Annual Hip-Hop Festival and Conference, sponsored by Brown University and B-SUCHH. Brown University, April 22, 1998.

"Canonizing the Vernacular: Can Aural supplements be part of this complete breakfast?" Talk on the new Norton Anthology of African-American Literature," Southern New England Conference on Race and Ethnicity, Rhode Island College, October 4, 1997.

"(Re)Fugees of Language: Vernacular Vectors from Wycliffe to Wyclef," Cultural Apprenticeship (Literacy) session, Middle English Division (Excluding Chaucer), Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 1996.

"Africa and the Diasporic Imagination" -- Panel paper, African Literature Division, Modern Language Association, Chicago Illinois, December 1995.

"From Blues to Bop to Rap: A Signifying History of Hip-Hop." Conference paper, Sonneck Society for American Music, Worcester, Mass., April 8, 1994.

"Canons: Traditions, Oppositions, Alternatives" -- panel paper, colloquium on "The Literary Canon: What Should We Teach, and How?" University of Maine, Orono, April 3, 1993.

"Re-Theorizing the Vernacular." Conference paper, Maine Medievalists' Association, Colby College, Waterville Maine, September 26, 1992.

"The Politics of Pilgrimage: the Canterbury Tales and its Lollard Readers." Conference paper, NEMLA, Buffalo NY, April 4 1992.

"Reading 'Aftir the lettre': The Anti-hermeneutics of the Vernacular." Conference paper, NEMLA, Hartford CT, April 1991.

"Chaucer, Lollardy, and Lollard Textual Communities in the Fifteenth Century." Conference paper, Columbia Medieval Guild, Columbia University, New York, April 1990.

"Auctores & Copyists: The Deployment of Chaucer's Text 1400-1500." Conference paper, Brown/Yale/U. Conn. Consortium on Medieval Studies Conference, Brown University, May 1989.

F. Reviews, Interviews, and On-line Resources (with URL's if applicable)

Review of John Logie Baird: A Life, by Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 23 No. 4 (2003).

Review of Fury Beach: The Four-Year Odyssey of Captain John Ross and the Victory, The Arctic Book Review, Vol. 5 no. 1 (Spring 2003).

Review of Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin, by Martyn Beardsley, The Arctic Book Review, Vol. 4 No. 1 (Spring 2002).

Review of North Pole Legacy: Black, White, and Eskimo, by Dr. S. Allen Counter, The Arctic Book Review, Vol. 4 No. 1 (Spring 2002).

Review of The Arctic in the British Imagination, 1818-1914, by Robert G. David, The Arctic Book Review, Vol. 3 No. 2 (Fall 2001).

Review of Michael Eric Dyson, Making Malcolm. MELUS (1999).

Review of Stephan Oettermann: The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium, in Iconomania (UCLA Art Department), No. 1 (1998). http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/arthist/icono/rapotter/panoram.htm

Review of Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, in History Reviews On-Line, Volume 3 No. 2 (Winter 1998).

"The Fate of Franklin" World-wide-web museum devoted to cultural history of the Arctic, with a focus on Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition of 1845. http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/SJFranklin.html

Review of David C. Woodman, Strangers Among Us, in History Reviews On-Line, Volume 2, No. 1 (Summer 1996).

[Review of Houston A. Baker Jr.'s] Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy. Black Sacred Music: A Journal of Theomusicology, vol. 8 no. 2 (Fall 1994).

Interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D, HardC.O.R.E., The Electronic Magazine of Hip-Hop Music and Culture, vol. 2 no. 5 (September 1994).   http://www.ric.edu/rpotter/chuck.html

"Black Modernisms/Black Postmodernisms" [review essay]. Postmodern Culture, vol. 5 no. 1 (September 1994). http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.994/review-1.994

"The Black (W)hole of Bataille: A Genealogy of Postmodernism?" [review essay]. Postmodern Culture, vol. 3 no. 1 (September 1992). http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.992/review-2.992

"In Search of a More 'Social' Chaucer" [review essay]. Hwæt! Vol. 2 no. 1 (Spring 1991).

IV. Teaching

* = courses I have personally developed

At Rhode Island College:

ENG 161 - Introduction to Western Literature

ENG 202 - Introduction to Literary Theory

ENG 205 - Backgrounds in British Literature to 1800

ENG 261 - Northern Exposures: Arctic Exploration in a (Post)Colonial Context *

ENG 432 - History of the English Language

ENG 433 - Modern Grammar

ENG 460 - Victorian Spectacles *

ENG 460 - Diaspora Blues: Black Vernaculars in Literature and the Arts *

ENG 530 - The Vernacular Revolution: 1380-1500 *

FILM 551: Media Culture

At Colby College:

WRT 115 - Composition

ENG 271 - Introduction to Literary Theory

ENG 413 - The Chaucerian Text *

ENG 311 - Literature of the High Middle Ages

EN 493 - The Politics and Poetics of the Vernacular *

EN 493 - Performing the Transgressive Body: Gender and Sexuality *

English 415 - History of the English Language.

V. Service

A. Departmental and College Service

At Rhode Island College:
 

Secretary, Council of Rhode Island College, 2005-

Member, Committee on General Education, 2000-2002.

Secretary, Council of Rhode Island College, 1999-2000.

English Department, Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum and Instruction, 1998-2005; Chair 2001-2003.

English Department Advisory Committee, 1999-2000; 2003-2004.

English Department Representative, Workshop on the Development of a College Web Policy, 1998.

English Department and Education Department, ad-hoc committee on Language and Linguistics, 1997.

English Department Webmaster and Technology Delegate, 1997-present.
 
 

At Colby College:

English Department, Committee on English 271 (Introduction to Theory), 1994-1995.

English Department Hiring Committees, Postcolonialist Position, 1993-1994 and 1994-1995.

English Department Curriculum Committee, 1993-1994.

Campus Community Committee, 1991-1993.

B. Community Service

Member, Providence Writers Group, 1996-present.

Member, Rhode Island Zoological Society. 1999-present.

Member, Executive Board, Rhode Island College Co-Operative Playgroup, 1997-1998.

Public lecture, "Hip-Hop's History," given as part of Black History Month, February 1997, Rhode Island College.

Public lecture, "Hip-Hop and the Politics of Street Life," given as part of Rhode Island College's "October Series: Children On the Street," Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, October 28, 1996.

March, 1994: Presentation on improvisation and hip-hop poetry to 4th and 5th graders at the Pleasant Street School, Waterville, Maine, as part of their "Writing Day" activities.

September, 1993 - January 1995: Host of a two hour, weekly educational radio program, "Roots 'n' Rap," on WMHB, 90.5 FM, Waterville, Maine.

July, 1993: Prepared and taught an intensive, one-week course, "The Post-Colonial Condition: Global Literatures," for the Xerox Summer Institute at Colby College (a college immersion program for minority high-school juniors).

February 15, 1993: Participated in a panel discussion of hip-hop music sponsored by the Colby College Student Organization for Black and Hispanic Unity.

March 5, 1992: Public lecture on Petrarch, underwritten by the New England Foundation for the Humanities, as part of the series "Encompassing Columbus: Five Italian Lives," at the Waterville Public Library, Waterville, Maine.

Colby College Campus Community Committee, 1991-1994.

Colby College Women's Studies Advisory Committee, 1991-1992.
 

VI. Academic Honors

Phi Beta Kappa, Brown University (1991).

High Honors, M.A. examinations, Syracuse University (1987).

Society of Distinguished High School Students (1978).
 
 

VII. Grants and Awards

2001-2002: Grant, Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, Incentive Fund For Excellence in Technology, "Co-ordinated Web-based Commons for English 161 (Core I)."

1999: Teaching and Technology Fellow, Rhode Island College.

1998: Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grant, "Arctic Spectacles: Looking to the North in the Nineteenth Century."

1992: Summer grant from Colby College (President's discretionary funds) to develop two new courses addressing the issues of race, class, and gender.
 

VIII. References (Available upon Request)

Robert Scholes, University Professor, Brown University

Joan Dagle, Professor of English and Chair, Rhode Island College

Mark Motte, Professor of Geography, Rhode Island College

Mary Cappello, Professor of English, The University of Rhode Island