Jacob Potash · Co-founder and producer at Fair Form · Portfolio
Recent & Forthcoming work
- Clive and Worm in Winter Memoir reflecting a year of academic and personal crisis. Isolation, transgression, unlikely paths to self-discovery.
- An Anatomy of AI Criticism Critical reflection on the promises and ideological glitches of Large Language Models, based on a collaborative book-writing experiment with an AI.
- Emails to Danny Lyrical prose piece, presented as a series of fragmented emails.
- Rap and the American Religion Essay arguing that the theological underpinnings of American evangelicalism are key to understanding the persona, contradictions and power of a major female rapper.
- The Philosophy of Dress Feature film starring Sydney Lemmon, Romy Reiner, Jake Weary, Clara McGregor. A troubled designer and her magnetic influencer-muse collaborate on a single dress, but their artistic bond unravels into toxic obsession. Wrote and produced.
- No Special Place: on having a famous brother Personal essay on memory, digital celebrity, and political idealism, framed by the experience of having a brother who becomes a prominent online activist.
- TIGER TIGER Short film starring Sydney Lemmon and Jonathan Higginbotham. Co-wrote and produced.
Selected Earlier Work
- Online Ideas: essays (Co-Author) Collection of essays, co-authored with Hugo Blondel, offering a critical and personal lens on pop culture, politics and theology during the pandemic era. “A slower mode of pop cultural critique... These texts place our popular culture in longer histories of intellectual thought. What does Biblical exegesis have to do with Nicki Minaj? Everything.”—Roland Betancourt
- Group: an anthology (Editor) Anthology of images, interviews, poetry and fiction by a group of seven friends. Originally published in weekly volumes throughout 2020. “Brims with intensity, warmth, pluck, and wonder... inventive Gen Z housemates tunneling their way to a space of intellectual and aesthetic freedom.”—Peter Cole
- The Pop Reformation: Music, Ownership, Power A narrative of how three popstars leveraged exclusive streaming releases to assert economic and creative autonomy, echoing the disruptive power of the printing press. Praised as "smart work" by Dr. Elizabeth Alexander and cited in the Wikipedia entry for D'Angelo. Led to an extended conversation with members of the Roc Nation executive team about branding and narrative.
- Anti-Pop Pop: On 'Joanne' and the 2016 Election Analysis of the parallel "anti-establishment" rhetoric in Lady Gaga's musical turn and Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Included in a select bibliography by the peer-reviewed journal American Music (Vol. 35, No. 4) for its value in teaching public musicology.
- 'I own your child': Kanye West and the Family Spectacle Examination of rap and reality TV as America's most honest art forms, exploring how Kim Kardashian and Kanye West blend family, commerce, art and religious gestures.
- Review: Marilynne Robinson's 'The Givenness of Things' Review of the essay collection. Examines her defense of faith against positivism and the ironies of her mainstream cultural moment.
- Philip Roth's American Pastoral Analysis of the novel's narrative structure and its function as a critique of the legacy of 1960s.
- The Migrant's Calling: Scripture, Authority, Dislocation Explores the creative and prophetic power of the exilic figure, from the Abrahamic narrative to the American novel.
- The American Dilemma: Two Accounts Compares visions of American culture in Hart Crane's "The Bridge" and Henry James's "The Europeans."
- Selected theater reviews David Harrower's 'Knives in Hens'; Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town'; Jackie Sibblies Drury's 'Really'; Walker Sampson's 'Slouch'; Steve Martin's 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'; Anna Deavere Smith’s 'Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992'
Across formats, I am interested in questions of language, meaning and faith. Since 2021, besides producing a feature film, I have held educational roles and supported research on youth mental health for Andrew Solomon’s articles and upcoming book. I studied English at Yale (John Hubbard Curtis Prize) then started graduate work in theology before leaving to co-found a production company with Cyrus Duff. I have lived in five states and three countries. For full texts or manuscripts under review, please write to jacob [at] fairform [dot] xyz.