Ross Hair

Ross is Emeritus Professor in Literature and Culture. His publications include the monographs Ronald Jonson’s Modernist Collage Poetry (Palgrave, 2010), Avant-Folk: Small Press Poetry Networks from 1950 to the Present (Liverpool University Press, 2016), and Brilliant Absence: Pursuing the Kingfisher in the Work of Hans Waanders (Uniformbooks, 2019). Ross is also the co-editor of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music: America Changed Through Music (Routledge, 2016) and Minting the Sun: A New Selection of Ted Walker’s Poetry (Chichester University, 2010). His research has been published in numerous journals including Contemporary Literature, Modernism/modernity, and Word and Image.

Ross’s poetry has appeared in a number of poetry British and North American magazines such as Shearsman, LVNG, and The Cultural Society. Ross’s pamphlet, An Anthology Gathered for Shirley Collins, was published by Longhouse Publishers in 2012.

Ross’s research is concerned primarily with North American and British literature and culture. He is particularly interested in modern and contemporary poetry; small press publishing and its cultures; and the intersections between literature, music, and visual art. 

Ross's forthcoming book Control Theory (University of New Mexico Press) explores the Apollonian and Dionysian tensions in postwar art, music, and poetry. It examines how structural precision and rationality—manifested in serial music, constructive art, and concrete poetry—fostered a formalist “new lyrical involvement” shaped by cybernetics, systems theory, and structuralism. This constructive aesthetic, my book argues, not only tempered the notions of chance and indeterminacy championed (via Erik Satie) by John Cage and Fluxus, but also underpins the dynamic interplay of order, change, and chance in British systems music and the work of Lily Greenham.

Ross is also currently writing a short monograph on the influential poetry and art magazine 0 to 9, focusing on the contributions of Vito Acconci and Hannah Weiner. This book critically examines the magazine’s complex and often-misunderstood relationship with both Second Generation New York School poetry and Conceptual art and aims to uncover how 0 to 9 navigated and complicated the boundaries between these two movements, offering fresh insights into its pivotal role as a platform for postwar avant-garde culture.

2018 - 2023: Course Director (Department of American Studies)

2014 - 2018: Research / Unit of Assessment Coordinator (American Studies)

2012 - 2014: Course Director (American Literature with Creative Writing)

2013 - 2014: Senior Advisor (American Studies)

2011 - 2013: Plagiarism Officer