Auto Dissertation I, Vol. 1: Breaths Along the Potomac: An Epistolary Art Gallery

Breaths Along the Potomac 107 Boyd -publishes work or creates dynamic models of creativity that produce an extraordinary effect and contribution to one or more extensive and academic schools of thought and/or oral tradition-based bodies of knowledge. 2I hope to one day produce scholarship that has a fraction of that effect.The epistolary/letter writing style of this article was also very necessary for me, so that I may naturally synthesize between the personal and academic.You'll also notice that throughout these series of letters, I changed the text color to match the "aura" of each letter recipient, which also became a way for me to explore different methods of illuminating the idea that "letter writing" is an artform unto itself.Pulling inspiration from the legendary works of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple", the letters of Robert Gould Shaw, -which inspired the narration of the motion picture "Glory" and are archived at Harvard Library -and the literary legacy of Phillis Wheatley known for penning a letter and poem to George Washington in 1775 -I would end up falling in love with the idea of taking a similar approach. 3 Regarding the idea of an "epistolary art gallery," I wanted to use as many pieces of art, photographs, and visualizations as possible to create the feeling of being immersed in an art gallery showing, and to further blur the lines of creativity expressed in the paradigms of research, art, and law.The main anchor concepts and images of this article are from my prototype deck of "legacy cards," which I designed and created for the Juneteenth festival at George Washington's Mount Vernon as a 2023-2024 research fellow.Instead of feeling forced to default to the knowledge-distribution modalities of a typical dissertation or academic book (no shade, I always have a new book in my hands), I felt very strongly that it would be important for myself and my colleagues at Mount Vernon to explore alternative and experimental channels for what I was learning and experiencing during my fellowship.The "legacy cards" are one indispensable method of consolidating and sharing my research, and believe me, other creative distribution concepts are filtering through my "teaching + learning" imagination all the time.Thank goodness Mount Vernon encourages us to see this as a "lifelong" fellowship.Also, in using a different color text for each letter recipient, from blue (Eiko), to red (Aunty Joyce) to dark orange (Tonika) to steel blue (Christina), I began 2 KRS-One.The Gospel of Hip Hop: