What’s your prologue?

I first wrote my thesis WARHOLS’ WAKE in 2019. At the time, I was proud and am still proud to discuss creative consciousness but over the years, I grew to learn there is more to say. More context. These artists didn’t just drop out of the sky like aliens. Duchamp, Warhol, Duchamp, Lewis, Hopper, and Henri all came from something, somewhere, somehow.

So0o0o semester, in my Humanities and the Marketplace PhD class, I decided to revisit it, layering in some historical context: Berlin on Romanticism, Nauert on Humanism, Wells on the Roman Empire, Cameron on the Mediterranean world in Late Antiquity. Nothing appears out of nowhere. Everything is built by what came before.

Our societal obsession with being BETTER/MORE/SPECIAL wants us to pretend the past doesn’t exist. Is it just me, or does the internet constantly prove that whatever it is I am is absolutely not enough? Always room for improvement. I don’t like that. I don’t want that.

We were built by before. There’s nothing we can do to change that. There’s no cream or dress or song or someone that can rewrite what brought you here.

My PhD cohort has students from literally everywhere, and the classes I teach locally are just as global. Every human carries a context—historical, cultural, familial, environmental. To ignore it is a stolen opportunity. To forget how many layers had to stack perfectly for us, individually and specifically, to exist…well, that’s almost tragic. Selfish in all the wrong ways. Thin and dim.

Okay so now now it’s the end of the semester. I’m turning in this paper today. EXHALE. Another closure, another experience for the book (PhD pun, haaaa). Another moment that is only mine, but maybe worth sharing.

If theres any point to any blog maybe this one is just trying to say:
Take what what’s worth keeping from what came before
Leave what you don’t need.
Build a better before for what comes next.

For me, it’s the prologue.