The Decolonization of Phenomenology: Dialogical Universality in Cesaire, Fanon and Hountondji

De Schryver, Carmen Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Contemporary decolonial criticism and critical phenomenological thought may be characterized as proceeding from a disenchantment with the philosophical aspiration towards universality. The overarching argument put forward in this dissertation is that there is, to the contrary, an intimate and even necessary connection between the decolonization of philosophy and the affirmation of philosophical universality. By way of an engagement with the Africana tradition of phenomenology—a tradition which culminates in the thought of Paulin J. Hountondji—I make a case for the pertinence of a conception of universality I term “dialogical universality” to debates about pluralizing the canon, academic decolonization, and communication across geographical and cultural frontiers. In the first half of this dissertation, I look at Hountondji’s transformation of the Husserlian project of phenomenology as universal science. Therein I employ a novel comparative methodology I call “reading from the margins”: rather than beginning with Husserl’s thought and interpreting Hountondji’s intellectual output by those lights, I invert the traditional order of reading. That is, I begin with the concerns characteristic of Hountondji’s thinking, and re-interpret Husserlian phenomenology from this perspective. This subtle methodological shift is motivated by decolonial concerns regarding the reification of European thought as pivotal, even when it is considered in dialogue with traditions from the Global South. I thus resist the suggestion—still dominant in the Hountondji scholarship—that his philosophical trajectory is entirely explicable by reference to the European “canon”. On my methodology, the very terms “canon” and “margin” begin to shift in meaning: “reading from the margins” is thus self-destructive in that its ultimate aim is to reconstitute what is considered canonical in the first place. One of the central contributions of my dissertation is, in this sense, methodological in nature: “reading from the margins” is offered in the spirit of an inaugural example of a decolonial approach to the history of philosophy. Beyond suggesting itself as a decolonial framework, “reading from the margins” enables substantive interpretive interventions foreclosed on the standard approach. Within the context of Chapter One, the interpretive upshot of my methodology is to throw into relief a Hountondjean heresy vis-a-vis Husserlian phenomenology. This chapter sets into action the methodology of “reading from the margins” by beginning with an exegetical consideration of Hountondji’s thought on its own terms, focusing on his critique of what he calls ethnophilosophy. The central argument put forward in this chapter is that the critique of ethnophilosophy may be extended to Husserl, insofar as Husserl remains beholden to an ethnophilosophical logic which identifies Europe as the unique site of universal thinking while casting the colonized world in the mold of the particular. It follows that the standard picture whereby Hountondji is simply an heir of the Husserlian project of phenomenological thought must be challenged. This then raises the question: why retain the name “phenomenology” if its founder is subject to such a criticism? Chapter Two answers this questions through an investigation into the relationship between the Husserl’s methods and the entrance of Eurocentrism into his work. This chapter makes two interrelated arguments. First, I follow Hountondji in focusing on the phenomenological method of a reduction that puts out of play all presuppositions as an important resource for developing a decolonized conception of universality. I then, second, explore two different ways of accounting for Husserl’s failure to fully effect the reduction. Drawing upon Merleau-Ponty, I first consider the possibility that Husserl’s method is insufficiently empiricist. I then consider Derrida’s criticism of this Merleau-Pontyian view which focuses instead on the way that Husserl is at his most Eurocentric when he is at his most empiricist, i.e., when he abandons the explicitly transcendental orientation of phenomenology. I thus show that Eurocentrism does insinuate itself in Husserl’s methodological framework—not, however, in a manner that renders phenomenology simply irredeemable. Given the opposition between these two insightful criticisms, however, I argue that the challenge for a decolonial version of phenomenology is considerable; for, in order that it avoid Eurocentrism, it would need to both realize phenomenology’s transcendental ambitions and yet remain in contact with concrete, empirical intersubjectivity. One of the issues that arises in considering Merleau-Ponty’s proposal for a more empirical and consequently multicultural form of phenomenology is that it is naive, within a “post”-colonial context, to assume that non-domineering form of contact between cultures—requisite for philosophical communication with universal aims—is possible. Chapter Three focuses on this problematic by elucidating the arguments made by Cesaire and Fanon regarding the incompatibility between colonialism and the aspiration to universality. Beyond making this conceptual argument, this chapter contributes to the scholarship on these thinkers by (i) emphasizing the universalistic dimension of the Negritude tradition and (ii) reconsidering Fanon’s relationship to that tradition of thought. Chapter Three also involves an important feature of the decolonial methodology carried out in this dissertation, since the turn to Cesaire and Fanon is motivated by Hountondji’s own construction of his philosophical inheritance. With the conceptual terrain thus laid out, Chapter Four moves on to think through a decolonial, phenomenological conception of universality which I call “dialogical universality”. I develop this notion through a close reading of Fanon and Hountondji and their respective discussions of how the universal emerges within, but is not for that reason vitiated by, particular sites of dialogical exchange. One key intervention made in this chapter is thus to challenge the still commonly presumed opposition between the particular and the universal. Here, I set out the conditions that dialogical settings would have to meet in order to be conducive to the sharing of universalizing insight. Although both Fanon and Hountondji direct our focus to the manner in which the universal is already on the horizon within localized, intra-African debates, an implication of their fallibilistic views of the universal is that such debates eventually be expanded to the trans-cultural. Herein lies the crux of the indissociability claim: I argue that dialogical universality depends upon the in principle inclusion of all particular perspectives. This speaks to the provisionality and revisability of any proposition claiming universal status, for no claim meets this demanding standard so long as there are others who have yet to provide criticism of it in dialogue. I argue that this does not invalidate universality, speaking instead to the endlessness of the debate. Yet Fanon and Hountondji are not equally consistent on this point. In the fifth and final chapter, I argue that it is in Hountondji’s thought that we find the most thoroughgoing commitment to the view that claims demanding universal assent arise within all contexts. Against Fanon’s suspicions regarding the possibility for endogenous systems of knowledge to rise to universal validity—and, indeed, against the pessimism attending these suspicions—Hountondji’s positive valuation of endogenous epistemes provides an important counter and supplement. In doing so, I argue that Hountondji (i) draws on his distinctive interpretation of Cesaire, an interpretation at odds with Fanon’s and (ii) enacts a radical version of the phenomenological reduction as a suspension of methodological biases which surreptitiously favor European scientific and philosophical paradigms (a methodological bias to which Fanon falls prey). In so doing, I argue that Hountondji’s work offers a resolution to the dilemma with which Chapter Two concluded: it is attentive at one and the same time to the exigency that universality be developed through encounters with concrete others as well as the demand that whatever is empirically actual at any time not prejudge a sense of what is possible. Hountondji thus maintains the transcendental vector of Husserlian phenomenology in his attempt to break through embedded presuppositions that dictate what can be a source of universal insight. The conclusion brings the various strands of this dissertation together by way of a reflection on the connection between the conception of “dialogical universality,” the method of the reduction, and the decolonial strategy of “reading from the margins” utilized in the dissertation. I show that “reading from the margins”, inasmuch as it is undertaken from the positionality of someone who (like myself) is culturally situated within the European tradition, itself enacts a version of the reduction. This is because it intentionally puts out of play the presumptive favoring of the European canon still perpetuated by a number of comparative approaches. Because the strategy of “reading from the margins” operates to deflate the overblown status of the European philosophical tradition in global philosophical research, it contributes to the production of a more egalitarian conversational space—one of the conditions of dialogical universality. My proposed strategy and the phenomenological method of the reduction are thus shown to be intimately connected to the central concept proposed and defended in this dissertation.

Response to Stress and Trauma among Racially/Ethnically Diverse Women in Different Health Settings: A Three-Study Dissertation

Waldron, Elizabeth M Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Stress, trauma exposure, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are associated with chronic health conditions. In the U.S., women of color face trauma at up to four times the national rate. They also contend with chronic stress from the intersectional hardships of racism, discrimination, sexism, and economic hardship that is the result of historical and current institutional racism. Health systems and clinics can intercede in the cycle of trauma, stress, and chronic illness by integrating stress- and trauma-focused interventions within accessible settings where women of color receive their care. The aim of this three-study dissertation is to explore the potential for stress- and trauma-based interventions for women of color in primary and community health settings at three stages of intervention development. The first stage is to identify the need. The study, “Posttraumatic Stress, Adverse Birth Outcomes, and Prenatal Care Among Black/African American Women,” analyzes the associations of self-report posttraumatic stress symptoms and electronic health records of prenatal care and birth outcomes of Black/African American pregnant women. This analysis reveals that women with more severe symptoms are less likely to engage in adequate prenatal care and more likely to give birth preterm. This study’s findings emphasize the importance of more comprehensive trauma-informed outreach and obstetric and mental health care for Black/African American women. This dissertation’s second study focuses on intervention development. “Stress, Coping, and the Acceptability of Mindfulness Skills Among Pregnant and Parenting Women Living with HIV: A Focus Group Study” explores the psychosocial treatment needs of pregnant and parenting women living with HIV and assesses their receptivity to mindfulness in pursuit of developing a mental health intervention. This study shows that pregnant and parenting women living with HIV are open to mindfulness skills for coping with stress and to a non-stigmatizing group intervention to decrease their isolation. The final study of this dissertation is “The Impact of Participation in a Mindfulness-based Intervention on Posttraumatic Stress Symptomatology among Black/African Women: A Pilot Study.” This final study examines the efficacy of an adapted mindfulness-based intervention delivered in a community health setting. Findings reveal significant reductions in posttraumatic stress symptoms, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and increases in mindfulness from baseline to end of treatment among Black/African American women with trauma histories. While stress and trauma are linked to chronic health conditions and poor health outcomes, interventions that are accessible and non-stigmatizing, like community-based mindfulness interventions, have great potential for improving the mental and physical health of women of color.

Schrodinger Cat State Atomic Interferometer with Heisenberg-Limited Sensitivity and Detection of Collective States

Sarkar, Resham Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

In this thesis, we show first how to formulate the properties of all the collective states under various non-idealities, and use this formulation to understand the dynamics thereof. We show that the collective states corresponding to the absorption of a given number of photons can be visualized as an abstract, multi-dimensional rotation in the Hilbert space spanned by the ordered product states of individual atoms. We also consider the effect of treating the center of mass degree of freedom of the atoms quantum mechanically on the description of the collective states. In particular, we show that it is indeed possible to construct a generalized collective state, as needed for the COSAIN, when each atom is assumed to be in a localized wave packet. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

Structure theorems in dynamics and their applications

Sun, Wenbo Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

We study structure theorems in the topological and ergodic setting, and use them to provide various applications in dynamical systems, combinatorics, and number theory. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

Assessing the Physiology of Swallowing Impairment: Measuring the Measurement Method and Characterizing Diagnostic Impairment Profiles

Clain, Alexander E Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Swallowing impairment or dysphagia has many possible causes with severe sequelae. One major mediator of the relationship between causes and sequelae is the physiologic impairment of the swallowing mechanism. Assessing the physiology of swallowing impairment is of great importance so that treatment can target physiology to mitigate sequelae. The assessment of swallowing physiology is primarily conducted through Modified Barium Swallow Studies (MBSS), where Videofluoroscopy (VFS) of a patient swallowing an x-ray opaque bolus is recorded and interpreted by a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). On the one hand, the goals of this assessment are objective as they are aimed at understanding physiologic biomechanics of impairments. On the other hand, the methods of this assessment are subjective in that clinicians must choose what boluses to give, what physiologic aspects of the swallow to assess, and how to score impairment for those physiologic aspects. The Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile (MBSImP™©) is a measurement method that standardized the subjective elements of the assessment, and subsequently enjoyed widespread clinical uptake. This widespread uptake of MBSImP resulted in the accumulation of over 50,000 patient records in a Swallowing Data Registry (SDR), a dataset that forms the basis for the analyses of this dissertation. This SDR is used in Chapter 1 to test the degree to which MBSImP's standardization of the subjective side of MBSS has resulted in a valid and reliable measurement tool. Chapter 2 leverages MBSImP and the SDR to conduct a high-level comparison of the physiologic impairment profiles of five diagnoses commonly associated with dysphagia.

Teams and Organizing in the Digital Age: How Team Networks Form and Why They Perform

Ng Lane, Jacqueline Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2018 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

This dissertation explores the relationship between how teams form and what they need to perform. It adopts the perspective that technology is fundamental to organizing in modern workplaces and examines how technology may both enhance and constr. Addressing these two questions are of utmost importance due to two recent trends in contemporary organizations. The first trend is the rise of teams in the workplace, whereby firms are reorganizing as team-based structures to promote agility and. These two trends not only reveal that organizations are replacing traditional hierarchical structures with flatter, team-based designs but also suggest that traditional approaches to studying work teams and technology may no longer be sufficient. Chapter 1 introduces the framework for investigating team properties and phenomena in this dissertation: the team form-perform paradox . This paradox refers to the disconnect between what teams do and what they ought to do to be effective. In pa. Building on the team form-perform paradox framework introduced in Chapter 1, Chapters 2 through 4 explore how this lens can be used to first assess, and then improve team functioning. More specifically, Chapter 2 examines how team communication. Chapters 3 and 4 then explore how the design features of modern technologies, namely enterprise social media, alter the self-formation tendencies of teams. Essentially, ESM offers teams unprecedented opportunities for organizing, and it is possi. Lastly, Chapter 4 explores some of these new opportunities empirically by examining how team communication networks form on social media and how they perform. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

Closing the Supply-Demand Gap: Scheduling Policies for Volunteer Organizations

Escallon-Barrios, Mariana Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Volunteers play an essential role in humanitarian and non-profit organizations that strive to improve society. 30% of the population in the United States volunteered in 2019, and this percentage has been stable for the past two decades. This dissertation is motivated by the scheduling decision process in nonprofit organizations. These organizations rely on paid staff and volunteers to complete their tasks. Given the nature of volunteer activities, they face a high uncertainty regarding their workforce availability, resulting in mismatches between supply and demand. This dissertation explores shared-scheduling policies to close the gap between supply and demand. We propose and compare scheduling approaches to help the organization achieve its objectives and keep their volunteer workforce engaged.Chapter 2 presents the social network data analysis, from a partner organization, on volunteer preferences that motivated this dissertation. The analysis of data provided insights into imbalances between supply and demand. We identify specific characteristics of the volunteers, the demand, and the scheduling program. The analysis in this chapter on consistency and preferences of the volunteers motivated the research question for Chapter 3. Chapter 3 focuses on closing the supplydemand gap by integrating dual scheduling modes. We propose a scheduling policy that aims to balance coverage through paid staff and volunteers. The model defines coverage for each time slot as the expected supply (either paid staff assigned to the time slots or volunteers signing up) over the expected demand. The goal of the model is to create a balanced schedule by first assigning some time slots to staff. Those time slots are unavailable for volunteers to choose from, modifying the scheduling choices of volunteers. When the staff covers a time slot, thus unavailable for volunteers, volunteers might select an alternative option, we call these occurrences substitution effects. However, removing too many options for volunteers might result in disengagement or abandonment of the program. Thus, selecting which time slots are assigned to the staff is a challenging task. We formulate an MILP model that aims to increase the minimum coverage by finding the time slots that exploit the advantages of substitution effects while accounting for disengagement. Case study results show an improvement over current scheduling policies while maintaining volunteer engagement. The solutions are implementable and adaptable to the organization's needs.Chapter 4 builds on the modeling of Chapter 3. In this chapter, we identify key characteristics that determine the optimal shared scheduling policy. Policies differ in the order of scheduling activities (e.g. staff first or volunteers first) and the ways in which slots are allocated to staff. We revisit some assumptions from Chapter 3 that allow us to better understand the system. First, we incorporate preferences and availability of the staff into the decision-making process. In Chapter 3 we assume staff are always available and there was no cost associated with their assignment. In this chapter, we revisit this assumption and incorporate it in the metrics considered for analysis. Second, we evaluate the policies through discrete event simulation to have a more accurate representation of reality. In the simulation, instead of opting for the expected substitution, volunteers select a single time slot of the secondary set according to a distribution probability. This allows us to evaluate the performance of the policies under a more accurate representation of volunteers' behavior. Incorporating these changes, we evaluate the performance of the policies through four metrics that consider both organizational needs and volunteers' satisfaction and retention. This chapter provides the organizations with insights into the optimal shared-scheduling policy that will address its operational goals while keeping its volunteer workforce engaged.The chapters in this dissertation propose different approaches to shared-scheduling policies in volunteer organizations while accounting for volunteers and staff preferences. We acknowledge the complexity of nonprofit systems, and we provide insights to guide organizations in their decision process.

Essays on Labor and Gender Economics

Wong, Ashley Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

Chapter 1. Undergraduate Gender Diversity and Direction of Scientific Research (with Francesca Truffa)Can diversity lead to greater research focus on populations underrepresented in science? Diverse researchers can bring new questions and perspectives, but exposure to diversity may also inspire scientists, regardless of demographic identity, to pursue new topics. This paper studies a new determinant of research ideas: the diversity of the academic environment. Between 1960 and 1990, 76 all-male US universities, including many elite and prominent research institutions, transitioned to coeducation. Using a generalized difference-in-differences design, we document a 42% increase in the number of gender-related research publications authored by scholars at newly coed universities. This increase is explained by a combination of a more diverse researcher pool in terms of gender and prior research interests, as well as a shift in the research focus of individual scientists towards more gender-related topics. A bounding exercise suggests that the direct effects of the policy on scientists' research focus can account for more than half of these gains. These findings suggest that a diverse academic environment can influence the direction of scientific research.Chapter 2. Peer Effects and the Gender Gap in Corporate Leadership: Evidence from MBA Students (with Menaka Hampole and Francesca Truffa)Women continue to be underrepresented in corporate leadership positions. This paper studies the role of social connections in women's career advancement. We investigate whether access to a larger share of female peers in business school affects the gender gap in senior managerial positions. Merging administrative data from a top-10 US business school with public LinkedIn profiles, we first document that female MBAs are 24 percent less likely than male MBAs to enter senior management within 15 years of graduation. Next, we use the exogenous assignment of students into sections to show that a larger proportion of female MBA section peers increases the likelihood of entering senior management for women but not for men. This effect is driven by female-friendly firms, such as those with more generous maternity leave policies and greater work schedule flexibility. A larger proportion of female MBA peers induces women to transition to these firms where they attain senior management roles. We find suggestive evidence that some of the mechanisms behind these results include job referrals and gender-specific information transmission. These findings highlight the role of social connections in reducing the gender gap in senior management positions.Chapter 3. The Spillover Effects of Maternity Leave Extensions on Unemployment Insurance (with Francesca Truffa)This paper examines the fiscal externality of maternity leave extensions on unemployment insurance using German administrative data. We exploit a reform in Germany to show that extensions of maternity leave reduce mothers' UI takeup by 20\\% and total unemployment benefits by 22% in the first five years after childbirth. The timing of the reduction suggests the use of UI as a substitute for income replacement in the absence of paid leave. Importantly for welfare calculations, the reduction in UI benefits is substantial and represents almost half of the increase in maternity leave benefits. However, while this reduces the cost of extending maternity leave, it also reduces the mothers' willingness to pay for the policy as the additional maternity leave benefits are offset by the reduction in UI payments. Incorporating effects on UI substantively reduces the implied marginal value of public funds (MVPF) of the policy. We also document considerable heterogeneity of these estimates by pre-birth earnings.

Methods for the Imaging, Analysis, and Display of Layered Media

Fiske, Lionel D Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

This dissertation is a review of three projects I worked on during my time in the Computational Photography Lab at Northwestern University. First, a source separation problem for the X-Ray Fluorescence images of painted works of art is addressed through the incorporation of Hyperspectral Reflectance data. Following this, a discussion of Optical Coherence Tomography and its applications to cultural heritage science is presented. A rigorous analysis of the depth resolved attenuation coefficient in the presence of speckle is performed and a Bayesian model for the signal is derived. Finally, the problem of speckle in fast temporally multiplexed holographic displays is addressed. In this, the impact of quantization on the reconstructed image quality is analyzed and quantization aware optimization methods to reduce speckle are surveyed.

Distributed Power: Climate Change, Elderhood, and Republicanism in the Grasslands of East Africa, c. 500 Bce to 1800 Ce

Fitzsimons, William Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

소속기관이 구독 중이 아닌 경우 오후 4시부터 익일 오전 9시까지 원문보기가 가능합니다.

This dissertation examines the longue duree political history of Ateker-speaking agro-pastoralists in the semi-arid plains of today’s Uganda – Kenya – Ethiopia – South Sudan borderlands. Today’s Ateker-speaking communities include the Karimojong, Teso, Turkana, Toposa, Dodos, Jie, Nyangatom, and Jiye. Over the past millennium, Ateker-speaking communities developed a diversity of political institutions – including age-class governments (asapan) and neighborhood congresses (etem) – that enabled them to build durable polities and expand territorially while incorporating new groups. These Ateker political configurations were distinct from better-studied kingdoms and chieftaincies in the region because they were decentralized and accorded power to office-holders on the basis of factors other than lineage or kin affiliation. Highlighting these Ateker cases, this dissertation argues for the inclusion of an new paradigm of political “republicanism” in the historiography of precolonial Africa. African republicanism is contrasted with another dominant political paradigm, that of “Wealth-in-People.” A distinction is drawn between the former, in which the government is a public good or res publica, and the latter, in which governance is constituted by networks of relationships that people both “belong in” and “belong to.” The significance of this difference for broader historical study is elaborated in Chapter One. Because documentary records are virtually non-existent for the setting under consideration, other historical sources are drawn upon to support the dissertation’s argument. Chief among these is historical linguistics, but archaeology, paleoclimate science, comparative ethnography, and oral traditions also play a role. Strands of evidence from each of these methods are woven together to explore changes and continuities in Ateker politics, society, and economics between c. 500 BCE and 1800 CE.