Dr. Kevin Potter, BA MA
Kevin Potter
T: +43-1-4277-42485

Consultation hours: By appointment

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, where my research and teaching primarily focus on Marxist theory, migrant literature, anarchist thought, dystopian fiction, and Palestine. My first book, Poetics of the Migrant, was released in 2023 through Edinburgh University Press, and received honorable mention for the 2024 Hugh J. Silverman Prize from the Association for Philosophy and Literature.

My current book project, titled The Abolition Unconscious, considers theological, ontological, and political anarchisms in 19th Century British Literature. This monograph is currently under contract with Verso Books, with an expected release in 2028. I have scholarly articles published or forthcoming in ARIEL, Poetics Today, Deleuze and Guattari Studies, New Formations, the European Journal of Life Writing, and Incontri; and my public writing has appeared in Jacobin, ROAR Magazine, Monthly Review, The Millions, and Dissident Voice.

I maintain a considerable interest in narrative, representation, theory, and poetics, especially as they intervene in bigger questions of power, subjectivity, ideology, and critique. I am happy to meet with students to discuss any of these topics, along with related concerns about literary and cultural studies.

Winter term 2025
123210 VO Literatures in English - Laughing at the Powerful: British Satire 1660-1750.
123250 AR Literature Course - 1/2 (MA) American/North American & Cultural Studies - Literature and the Global Life of Capital
Summer term 2025
123222 SE Literary Seminar (BA) - Literature and the Non-Fascist Life: Reading through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
128222 SE Literary Seminar (MA) - Literature and the Non-Fascist Life: Reading through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

Potter, K. (2024). Revolutionary Tendencies: Theories of Working-class Writing. In B. Clarke (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Working-Class Literature (pp. 41-56). Routledge.




Potter, K. (2023). Populism as a Floating Signifier. In J. Chacko Chennattuserry, M. Deshpande, & P. Hong (Eds.), Encyclopedia of New Populism and Responses in the 21st Century (pp. 714-718). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9859-0_391-1



Potter, K. (2023). Kropotkin, Peter. In K. Morrison (Ed.), Encyclopedia of London's East End (pp. 125). McFarland.

Mayer, S., Potter, K., & Mieszkowski, S. (Eds.) (2023). Refugee Tales. University of Groningen Press. European Journal of Life Writing Vol. 12 https://ejlw.eu/issue/view/5106




Potter, K. (2021). 'Don't Get Too Comfortable': Regimes of Motility in Shailja Patel's Migritude. In B. Englert, S. Thomsen, & B. Gföllner (Eds.), Cultural Mobilities Between Africa and the Caribbean (pp. 176-188). Routledge.





Potter, K. (2019). Centrifugal Force and the Mouth of a Shark: Toward a Movement-Oriented Poetics. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 50(4), 51-78.

Potter, K. (2019). Review of Sneharika Roy's The Postcolonial Epic. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 50(4), 141-144.

Kevin Potter

Postdoc

  • Department of English and American Studies

Curriculum vitae

2017-2022 Ph.D, English and Anglophone Literatures, University of Vienna

2013-2015 M.A. (Research Master's), Comparative Literary Studies, Utrecht University

2009-2013 B.A. English, University of South Florida

Research interests

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, where my research and teaching primarily focus on Marxist theory, migrant literature, anarchist thought, dystopian fiction, and Palestine. My first book, Poetics of the Migrant, was released in 2023 through Edinburgh University Press, and received honorable mention for the 2024 Hugh J. Silverman Prize from the Association for Philosophy and Literature. 

My current book project, titled The Abolition Unconscious, considers theological, ontological, and political anarchisms in 19th Century British Literature. This monograph is currently under contract with Verso Books, with an expected release in 2028.  I have scholarly articles published or forthcoming in ARIEL, Poetics Today, Deleuze and Guattari Studies, New Formations, the European Journal of Life Writing, and Incontri; and my public writing has appeared in Jacobin, ROAR Magazine, Monthly Review, The Millions, and Dissident Voice

I maintain a considerable interest in narrative, representation, theory, and poetics, especially as they intervene in bigger questions of power, subjectivity, ideology, and critique. I am happy to meet with students to discuss any of these topics, along with related concerns about literary and cultural studies.

Publications

Development Through Dispossession: Ghassān Kanafānī’s Returning to Haifa, the World-System, and Palestinian Belonging

Potter, K., 1 Aug 2025, In: Coils of the Serpent: Journal for the Study of Contemporary Power. . 14, p. 159-79 21 p.

Revolutionary Tendencies: Theories of Working-class Writing

Potter, K., 5 Dec 2024, The Routledge Companion to Working-Class Literature. Clarke, B. (ed.). Routledge, p. 41-56 15 p. (Routledge Literature Companions).

A Punishing Memory Culture

Potter, K., 29 Aug 2024, Monthly Review Online.

Was nicht mehr gelehrt werden darf

Potter, K., 14 Aug 2024

Review of Chantelle Gray's Anarchism After Deleuze and Guattari (2022)

Potter, K., 2024, (Accepted/In press) Deleuze and Guattari Studies.

Populism as a Floating Signifier

Potter, K. (Corresponding author), 11 Dec 2023, Encyclopedia of New Populism and Responses in the 21st Century. Chacko Chennattuserry, J., Deshpande, M. & Hong, P. (eds.). Springer Singapore, p. 714-718 5 p.

Poetics of the Migrant: Migrant Literature and the Politics of Motion

Potter, K., Oct 2023, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 384 p.

Introduction: Life Writing through Refugee Tales

Mayer, S., Potter, K. & Mieszkowski, S., 2023, In: European Journal of Life Writing. 12, p. 1-22 22 p.

Kropotkin, Peter

Potter, K., 2023, Encyclopedia of London's East End. Morrison, K. (ed.). McFarland, p. 125

Refugee Tales

Mayer, S. (Editor), Potter, K. (Editor) & Mieszkowski, S. (Editor), 2023, University of Groningen Press. (European Journal of Life Writing, Vol. 12).

Laying Down Loves Laws: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Micro-Fascisms

Potter, K., Jul 2022, In: Deleuze and Guattari Studies. 16, 3, p. 454-478 25 p.

The Left Should See Our Movement as a Dynamic Ecology

Potter, K., 31 Jan 2022, Jacobin.

Katja Sarkowsky and Mark U. Stein, eds. Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill Rodopi, 2021. 262 pp.

Heinz, S. & Potter, K., 2022, Anglistik. International Journal of English Studies, 33, 3, p. 150-151 2 p.

'Don't Get Too Comfortable': Regimes of Motility in Shailja Patel's Migritude

Potter, K., Jun 2021, Cultural Mobilities Between Africa and the Caribbean. Englert, B., Thomsen, S. & Gföllner, B. (eds.). Routledge, p. 176-188

'Resist much, obey little': Walt Whitman and the Paris Commune

Potter, K., 26 Mar 2021, ROAR Magazine.

Austria's 'Unsozial' Capitalists in a Time of Crisis

Potter, K., 3 Apr 2020, Monthly Review Online.

Disturbances of the Home/land in Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures: Special issue of "Humanities - An Open Access Journal"

Konrad, T. (Editor), Heinz, S. (Editor), Klik, L. (Editor) & Potter, K. (Editor), 2020, Multi-disciplinary digital publishing institute (MDPI). (Humanities; No. 3+4, Vol. 9).

Poetics, Form, and Marxism's Concern with Style: A Review of Daniel Hartley's The Politics of Style (Brill, 2017)

Potter, K., 1 Dec 2019, In: Poetics Today. 40, 4, p. 721-730 9 p.

Centrifugal Force and the Mouth of a Shark: Toward a Movement-Oriented Poetics

Potter, K., Oct 2019, In: ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. 50, 4, p. 51-78 28 p.

Review of Sneharika Roy's The Postcolonial Epic

Potter, K., Oct 2019, ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 50, 4, p. 141-144 4 p.

Reading Vonnegut to Cope with Death

Potter, K., 15 Oct 2018, The Millions.

Prosperity as a Crypt to Crisis

Potter, K., 2017, In: Dissident Voice.

Expansion/Expulsion: Review of Thomas Nail's The Figure of the Migrant

Potter, K., 2016, In: New Formations. 89

Utopian Registers of the New Italian Epic: Wu Ming and the Socially-Symbolic Act

Potter, K., Jul 2015, In: Incontri. Rivista Europa di Studi Italiani. 30, 1, p. 76-84 9 p.

Activities

Ghassān Kanafānī's Fiction and the Global Life of Capital

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Nov 2025

Struggle for the Universities: Knowledge or War?

Potter, K. (Participant)

9 May 2025

Was nicht mehr gelehrt werden darf: Gaza and the Crisis of Academic Freedom

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Mar 2025

Epistemic Violence in the Case of Palestine

Potter, K. (Participant)

16 Jan 2025

Palestine Absence and the Spectre of Capital

Potter, K. (Speaker)

10 Jan 2025

(Un)Sichtbare Geschichten: Die Lücken im Bücherregal füllen

Potter, K. (Participant)

20 Nov 2024

Development through Dispossession: Ghassan Kanafani's Returning to Haifa and the Occupation of Palestinian Belonging.

Potter, K. (Speaker)

11 Nov 2024

Palästine-Kongress

Potter, K. (Panellist)

5 Oct 2024

NYI GLobal Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies

Potter, K. (Contributor)

28 Jun 202411 Jul 2024

Palestinian Literature and Inter/Nationalism

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

28 Jun 2024

Narratives of a Global Eco-Catastrophe: The Palestinian Monad in the Fiction of Susan Abulhawa

Potter, K. (Speaker)

17 Mar 2024

Moving Solidarities: The Value-Form and the Intensity of Migrant Poetics

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

15 Jan 2024

Frontiers of Dispossession, Futures of Mutual Aid: Crisis and Solidarity in Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower

Potter, K. (Speaker)

12 Nov 2022

Publishing your dissertation

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Oct 2022

Kinopoetics: Migrant Literature in a Politics of Motion

Potter, K. (Speaker)

12 Jan 2022

Conclusion

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Oct 2021

A Poetics of Migrant Intensities

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

26 Jun 2021

Moving Disruptions: Mohsin Hamid's Exit West and the (Re-)Distribution of the Sensible

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Mar 202022 Mar 2020

Laying Down Love Laws: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Micro-Fascisms

Potter, K. (Speaker)

20 Feb 202022 Feb 2020

Experimental Migrancies

Potter, K. (Speaker)

13 Jun 2019

Regimes of Motility in Shailja Patel's Migritude

Potter, K. (Speaker)

2 May 2019

Introductory chapter of dissertation project

Potter, K. (Speaker)

3 Apr 2019

Centrifugal Force and the Mouth of a Shark: Toward a Movement-Oriented Poetics

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Apr 2018

The Intervening Pedagogy of Liberal Arts Education

Potter, K. (Speaker)

18 May 2017

An Ethics of Belonging: Recognition, Representation, and Migrant Literature

Potter, K. (Speaker)

24 Jun 2015

Michael K.'s Nomad Existence: Errantry in South African Space

Potter, K. (Speaker)

5 Jun 2015

Glissant's Opacity: Relation, Singularity, and the Chaos-Monde

Potter, K. (Speaker)

29 Mar 2014

Ghassān Kanafānī's Fiction and the Global Life of Capital

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Nov 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Was nicht mehr gelehrt werden darf: Gaza and the Crisis of Academic Freedom

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Mar 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Palestine Absence and the Spectre of Capital

Potter, K. (Speaker)

10 Jan 2025

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Development through Dispossession: Ghassan Kanafani's Returning to Haifa and the Occupation of Palestinian Belonging.

Potter, K. (Speaker)

11 Nov 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Palestinian Literature and Inter/Nationalism

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

28 Jun 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Narratives of a Global Eco-Catastrophe: The Palestinian Monad in the Fiction of Susan Abulhawa

Potter, K. (Speaker)

17 Mar 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Moving Solidarities: The Value-Form and the Intensity of Migrant Poetics

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

15 Jan 2024

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public



Publishing your dissertation

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Oct 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Kinopoetics: Migrant Literature in a Politics of Motion

Potter, K. (Speaker)

12 Jan 2022

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Conclusion

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Oct 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


A Poetics of Migrant Intensities

Potter, K. (Invited speaker)

26 Jun 2021

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Moving Disruptions: Mohsin Hamid's Exit West and the (Re-)Distribution of the Sensible

Potter, K. (Speaker)

19 Mar 202022 Mar 2020

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Laying Down Love Laws: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Micro-Fascisms

Potter, K. (Speaker)

20 Feb 202022 Feb 2020

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Experimental Migrancies

Potter, K. (Speaker)

13 Jun 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Public


Regimes of Motility in Shailja Patel's Migritude

Potter, K. (Speaker)

2 May 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Introductory chapter of dissertation project

Potter, K. (Speaker)

3 Apr 2019

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Centrifugal Force and the Mouth of a Shark: Toward a Movement-Oriented Poetics

Potter, K. (Speaker)

6 Apr 2018

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


The Intervening Pedagogy of Liberal Arts Education

Potter, K. (Speaker)

18 May 2017

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


An Ethics of Belonging: Recognition, Representation, and Migrant Literature

Potter, K. (Speaker)

24 Jun 2015

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Michael K.'s Nomad Existence: Errantry in South African Space

Potter, K. (Speaker)

5 Jun 2015

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Glissant's Opacity: Relation, Singularity, and the Chaos-Monde

Potter, K. (Speaker)

29 Mar 2014

Activity: Talks and presentationsTalk or oral contributionScience to Science


Department of English and American Studies

Spitalgasse 2
1090 Wien
Room: 3G-O2-27

T: +43-1-4277-42485

kevinp65@univie.ac.at