Russell Potter

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 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, where he is editor of the Arctic Book Review. He also worked as a consultant on, and appears in, the Nova documentary Arctic Passage (2006). In 2021, Potter's albums were reissued on vinyl LPs.

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