J.B. Potter studied history and German at Hampden-Sydney, a liberal arts college for men. He then served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and worked as a political science translator in Mainz, Germany, where he earned an MA in German through Middlebury College’s C.V. Starr School at Johannes Gutenberg University. After his time abroad, he spent four years teaching German and coaching tennis at inner-city and rural high schools in Virginia.
Through writing and research, J.B. explores the rhetoric of revolutions, the democratization of war, the memorialization of defeat, and the future of transatlantic relations. He is especially interested in how writers, filmmakers, and political leaders shape popular perceptions of the past and provide social commentary on the present by dramatizing historical events and promoting national narratives.
In his spare time, J.B. volunteers as a grant writer for the Inga Foundation, a nonprofit organization that stops slash-and-burn agriculture and ensures food security for subsistence farming communities in the tropics.