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

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

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.

The Rocket's Red Glare: Global Power and the Rise of American State Technology, 1940-1960

Falcone, Michael Alan Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation, titled "The Rocket's Red Glare: Global Power and the Rise of American State Technology, 1940-1960," makes three distinct but interlocking historical interventions. First, it argues that the rise of technology as a central ideological component of global hegemony represents a historical contingency, rather than a reflexive characteristic of great power status. Second, it argues that the United States lagged significantly behind other powers in pursuing state science and technology for much of the industrial era-rather, it was the technological, bureaucratic, and doctrinal tutelage of Great Britain during the Second World War that finally coaxed the American state into pursuing what would eventually become known as the military-industrial complex. Finally, it argues that U.S. inclination toward global hegemony was neither 'present at the creation' nor a reluctant assumption of responsibility in the aftermath of war, but rather represented a conscious doctrinal pivot, one informed in large part by the technological changes of the war. The British, eager to prop up their ally, had desperately thrust a number of key innovations into the uncertain hands of the American state, among them radar, jet engines, antibiotics, and the seeds of nuclear weaponry. They had also pressed their American partners to erect new institutions to accommodate further state research into technology-institutions that were previously wholly lacking in the United States. To a surprising degree, then, the military-industrial complex that defined the postwar American landscape represented a foreign import. The dissertation's chapters follow this theme through the aftermath of Sputnik in 1957, documenting the rocky implantation of a technological vision of global hegemony into an ill-prepared American state, with the military ending up as the only organization at political liberty to realize the vision of a scientific 'Endless Frontier.' The way this ideology of hegemony became reified among American thinkers, policymakers, and the public sphere, as well as its projection abroad by the 1960s, came to redefine the pursuit of power among industrialized nations and blocs the world over, from the EEC to the PRC. As the project ultimately reveals, however, powerful nations' current commitments to science and technology are in fact contingent products of a chaotic historical moment, rather than a natural outgrowth of states' will to power.

Essays on Labor and Gender Economics

Truffa, Francesca Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Chapter 1. Undergraduate Gender Diversity and Direction of Scientific Research (with Ashley Wong): 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 Ashley Wong): 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. Pension Caregiver Credits and the Gender Gap in Old-Age Income (with Fabio Blasutto and Ashley Wong): We study a 2001 pension insurance reform in Germany that introduced additional caregiver credits for working mothers with children between the ages of 3 and 10. Using administrative social security data from Germany combined with a difference-in-differences design, we find that the reform leads to a 66.5% increase in yearly retirement contributions during the eligibility period. 66% of the total effect can be explained by a change in the labor market outcomes of eligible mothers, while the remaining 34% is the mechanical effect of the reform. We find a significant increase in employment earnings, driven by both an increase in employment and a switch from marginal to employment subject to social security contributions. This translates into a 9.1 percentage point (18.3%) reduction in the gender gap in lifetime non-marginal earning points. Finally, a simple life-cycle model predicts that the pension reform leads to a 9.8\\% increase in retirement income and a 12% reduction in the gender gap in old-age income.

Im Gefilz von Kraften: The Language of Force in Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

Agins, Jonathan Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation examines the language of force in Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (MoE) as a site of literary self-reflection. It investigates how the text employs a constellation of "force" terms---including not only the words Kraft, Energie, and Leistung, but also images of physical and chemical forces such as heat, and electromagnetic force fields---to construct images of its own procedures and effects. The dissertation's point of departure is the suggestive image of "likeness-force" (Gleichniskraft ) in chapter 116 of MoE that compares the interpretive process of reducing a likeness (Gleichnis) to a univocal concept to the physical process of boiling down (auskochen) a foaming solution in order to stabilize it---losing the forces of its most volatile elements in the process. Interpreting the novel from the perspective of the image of likeness-force, this dissertation addresses problems that arise from it: what is this force? What are its effects? How does it distinguish the "figurative" language of Gleichnisse from the "discursive" language of concepts? How is it "like" and "unlike" the physical force that it is compared to? These questions have important implications for interpreting the novel's ethical and political engagement---a problem that has polarized MoE scholarship during the past several decades and that touches upon broader questions concerning the effects of literary language. Does "likeness-force" include the capacity to transform the reader's ethical and political ideas? Or does such an "applied" reading constitute a "boiling down" of literary language that reduces "likeness-force?" I will argue that likeness-force lies primarily in the text's capacity to generate a multiplicity of possible interpretations that attract and resist the reader's desire for univocal significance. Subsequently, the text constitutes a Gefilz von Kraften: a tangle of forces that precludes the certainty of linear order but also constitutes its own unity---just as the etymologically linked image of "felt" is an aggregate of matted fibers that also constitutes a smooth surface.

Designing Dynamic and Modular Biomolecules and Assays to Interrogate and Control Protein Fate

Sykora, Daniel J Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Cancer has long been the second-leading cause of death in the United States and represents the leading cause of death in midlife (age 40–60). While the prognosis for many cancers has vastly improved over the last thirty years, many cancers remain elusive due to the late-onset of symptoms, the specific organ systems they affect, the primary sites of metastasis, and, of course, the type of tumor (e.g. solid v. blood) and the subsequent oft-immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Biological therapeutics (i.e. biologics) have revolutionized the way we treat cancer due to their inherent ability to successfully target overexpressed antigens—often, proteins expressed on the surface of cancer cells—while minimally affecting healthy cells. The most common biologic is the immunoglobulin G (IgG) monoclonal antibody (mAb), a Y-shaped protein secreted by plasma B cells of the adaptive immune system. However, there is an inherent inability to easily optimize the structure of an IgG for maximal efficacy, and this lack of programmability can contribute to issues biologics often face such as low tumor penetration, nonspecific immunogenic responses, rapid clearance, and high dosage requirements. To modulate the structure-function of biologics to improve cancer treatment, mitigating the dosage of non-discriminatory traditional chemotherapy in the process, our lab has developed a protein assembly platform technology known as ‘megamolecules’ (Chapter 1) which uses rapid, specific, and irreversible enzyme-inhibitor reaction chemistries to covalently bring fusion proteins together. The megamolecule approach provides atomic-level precision over the synthesis of protein scaffolds, and these scaffolds can modulate inherent properties of biologics such as binding specificities, affinities, orientations, and stoichiometries with relative ease. In Chapter 2, this next-generation, modular assembly strategy was utilized to develop a library of therapeutics towards breast cancer research, building off our lab’s initial demonstration of synthesizing, characterizing, and utilizing megamolecules to create mimics of the mAb trastuzumab. While trastuzumab—often in combination with the mAb pertuzumab—has shown moderate success in the clinic for HER2+ breast cancer patients, immune tolerance typically results, leading to a transiently efficacious drug. Thus, there is sufficient room to improve upon this well-researched mAb. I used megamolecules to investigate how HER2-targeting scaffolds can be modulated to interrogate biologic properties such as binding affinity, avidity, net internalization rate of the megamolecule-receptor complex, and downstream inhibition of cell proliferation. Increasing the binding valency of our megamolecule scaffolds from 2 to 3 only modestly improved binding affinity and had no effect on increasing megamolecule-HER2 endocytic rate nor the inhibition of cell proliferation. Creating bispecific (biparatopic) scaffolds that targeted two different epitopes on HER2 was the only way to significantly increase net internalization rate by cross-linking domains I and IV on the HER2 extracellular domain. Interestingly, scaffolds that only presented the trastuzumab Fab domains were the only candidates that showed significant inhibition of proliferation. Here, even adding an extra nanobody towards domain I within scaffolds that had two trastuzumab Fabs completely abrogated the inhibition of cell proliferation seen with scaffolds that had two trastuzumab Fabs alone. Next, Chapter 3 explores the utility of the megamolecule platform as a proof-of-concept reversible protein switch. Here, we utilized synthetic chemistry to build terpyridine-terminated small molecules that irreversibly reacted with one of our megamolecule enzymes, cutinase. Once incorporated into a megamolecule scaffold, two terpyridine groups could reversibly coordinate upon addition of bivalent transition metals (e.g. Ni2+, Co2+, Zn2+). Strategically positioning each terpyridine group at opposing ends of a linear megamolecule scaffold allowed for quaternary-scale domain cyclization, which could be quantitatively discerned through Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). Ultimately, I demonstrated that terpyridine coordination—and therefore, FRET signal—was dependent on addition of specific divalent transition metals, which could be reversibly sequestered by addition of excess ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). The specific FRET response was unique to the length of each sensor as well as the individual metal ion; the data strongly correlated with long-standing literature of terpyridine-metal and EDTA-metal coordination kinetics. Longer scaffolds had faster coordination kinetics (i.e. kon) towards the bidentate complex, which, again, were unique to each individual metal. Coarse-grain modeling and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) showed good agreement with experimental results, suggesting that the megamolecule platform’s flexibility for synthesis of various protein scaffolds could be utilized within a protein sensor framework. While the treatments for cancer are varied and complex, appropriate diagnosis and favorable prognoses rely on early and accurate detection. In Chapter 4, I utilized surface chemistry techniques to pattern single cells into specific shapes that, when stained for their actin cytoskeleton, could discriminate between cancer and non-cancer cells with a feature-extraction machine learning algorithm. High-resolution (60X) confocal microscopy imaging against the actin cytoskeleton without any patterning was sufficient to discriminate between two cell populations in the instances where phenotypes were quite distinct, which ran against our initial hypothesis of always requiring shape normalization a priori. In fact, patterning cells into shapes for algorithmic discrimination was only effective when cell lines had similar, overlapping phenotypes. This work demonstrates a compelling proof-of-concept incorporation of high-resolution confocal microscopy into quantitative machine learning workflows. In Chapter 5, I present a co-author project from earlier in my PhD, which provided a necessary breadth to my five years at Northwestern. This published work interrogated phosphatase activity and specificity from various cancer and non-cancer cell lysate utilizing our platform technology known as SAMDI. Here, high-throughput, modular peptide arrays were treated with cell lysate, and we were able to demonstrate that phosphatase activity and specificity were conserved across cell lines, cancer states, and species. Furthermore, phosphatases in the lysate were universally more active towards phosphorylated threonine than serine on our peptide arrays, which may contribute to the reported differences in phosphorylation seen across the phosphoproteome. This work is important because most research in the field focuses on activity and specificity of kinases. In Chapter 6, I shortly reflect on my PhD, the major conclusions of my work, and discuss potential research projects for future students.

Human-AI Collaboration For Entrepreneurship Coaching: Leveraging a Cognitive Model and an LLM to Provide Proactive, Adaptive, and Differentiated Support

Huang, Evey Jiaxin Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2024 해외박사(DDOD)

The increasing complexity of societal challenges, such as climate change and social equity, demands innovative solutions often spearheaded by entrepreneurs (Sa & Kretz, 2015). However, novice entrepreneurs frequently struggle with addressing these ill-defined problems because they have yet to develop effective metacognitive skills, including problem articulation, risk diagnosis, and strategic planning (Bouwman, 1983; Johnson, 1988; Koedinger & Aleven, 2007; Reiser, 2004; Carlson et al., 2018). Mentors at university entrepreneurship incubators coach novices to develop these necessary skills but face significant challenges in providing personalized, in-depth coaching at scale (Rees Lewis et al., 2019).This dissertation investigates how human-AI systems might be designed to enhance entrepreneurship coaching, specifically by supporting mentors in developing novices' metacognitive skills like articulation, diagnosis, and planning, which are essential for tackling complex, real-world challenges. Existing tools, such as templates, help scaffold novices' learning but lack adaptability to mentors' and novices' evolving needs (Zhang et al., 2018; Rees Lewis et al., 2015; Bauer & Kientz, 2013; MacNeil et al., 2021). Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), which rely on cognitive models, offer expert-like support in well-defined domains (VanLehn, 2006; Koedinger & Corbett, 2006) but are rigid and unable to adapt to the dynamic, ill-defined challenges of entrepreneurship (Feltovich et al., 1997; Simon, 1973). Generative AI tools can support open-ended, creative tasks (Bubeck et al., 2023; Xu et al., 2024) but are prone to generic or fabricated outputs and lack domain-specific expertise and support for metacognitive processes (Sarkar, 2023; Marcus & Davis, 2020; Bommasani et al., 2021; Tankelevitch et al., 2023). This dissertation addresses the research gap by investigating how a human-AI coaching system might provide expert-like, domain-specific support that adapts to the evolving needs of both mentors and novices.To meet this goal, this dissertation explores a hybrid approach to support entrepreneurship coaching through human-AI collaboration, integrating a cognitive model with large language models (LLMs). The research aims to design a human-AI coaching system that collaborates with human mentors and novice entrepreneurs to enhance the coaching process and help novices develop essential metacognitive skills in an incubator setting. This system offers adaptive, proactive, and differentiated support, guiding novices in articulating problems and diagnosing risks, while collaborating with mentors in identifying root causes of risks and strategic planning.This research unfolds in three interlinked studies. Study 1 develops a cognitive model of entrepreneurship coaching through cognitive task analysis of coaching meetings. Study 2 establishes design principles for AI systems to support coaching by taking differentiated roles to help mentors and novices. Study 3 develops and deploys a human-AI coaching system, integrating the cognitive model and an LLM to provide proactive and adaptive support for novices and mentors in real-world incubator settings.This dissertation's core idea is to design effective human-AI systems for real-world, ill-defined domains, the AI should function as a cognitive scaffold, helping humans think more deeply about complex issues rather than simply offering solutions. This opens up new research areas on how AI can augment human cognition and develop metacognitive skills for problem-solving, especially in ill-defined domains. To design such systems, we need to (1) adopt human-centered design methodologies to deeply understand user needs, processes, and contexts; (2) provide user groups who have distinct needs and goals differentiated support; (3) take a hybrid approach that leverages cognitive model to capture expert knowledge and LLMs to provide adaptive support; and (4) retain human users' agency and control throughout their interactions with the system.This dissertation makes empirical, design, and technical contributions to the fields of Human-computer Interaction (HCI), human-AI collaboration, and entrepreneurship education: 1. Empirical contribution with a cognitive model that captures detailed strategies mentors employ and their rationales in an incubator setting; 2. Design contributions with a set of concrete design principles that can inform design of AI systems to support entrepreneurship coaching; and 3. Technological contribution with a novel human-AI system that leverages the strength of a cognitive model and a LLM to provide both mentors and novices adaptive and proactive support.

Essays on Financial Intermediation

Troiano, Adriana Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

The first chapter of this dissertation looks at strategic complementarities among investors in pooled investment vehicles where fund managers and investors have different objectives. Could lessening strategic complementarities among the investors of a fund make investing in the fund less appealing? Exploiting the 2014 Reform of the money market mutual fund industry as a quasinatural experiment, I empirically show that abandoning the stable net asset value pricing for the floating pricing led agents to withdraw their investments from the treated funds. The explanation proposed does not rely on the non-monetary benefits of stable pricing funds: the prospect of fewer redemption requests in times of market stress makes fund managers tilt the portfolio towards riskier assets, as shown both theoretically and empirically. Fund managers maximize total fees, rather than investors’ utility. Last, I provide suggestive evidence that the sponsor’s ex-post support explains the heterogeneous treatment effect across money market funds.The second chapter is written with Riccardo Bianchi Vimercati, Ph.D. candidate in the Economics Department at Northwestern University. In this chapter, we study the effects of balance sheet policies adopted by the Central Bank on the production of safe asset substitutes by financial intermediaries. Due to the presence of a pecuniary externality, intermediaries’ production of safe asset substitutes (shadow money) is socially excessive. The balance sheet of the Central Bank governs the relative supply of public safe assets available to the investors: reserves and government bonds. The composition of the pool of public safe assets, in turn, affects final investors’ demand for shadow money through a relative scarcity channel - that is, the Central Bank can always impact equilibrium shadow money production. When optimally setting the size of its balance sheet acting as a macroprudential regulator, the Central Bank trades off the benefits of crowding out shadow money with the costs of distorting the efficient portfolio choice of investors. The scope of the Central Bank intervention depends on the strength of the relative scarcity channel, which is pinned down by the substitutability between different safe assets. In particular, when government bonds are a closer substitute to shadow money than bank deposits are - e.g., when households hold part of their safe assets via relatively more price-sensitive asset managers - the Central Bank can implement the constrained efficient allocation via a smaller balance sheet.

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)

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.

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)

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.

Gaining Insights Into the Formation of Binary Black Hole Mergers: Towards a New Era of Binary Evolution

Gallegos Garcia, Monica Paulina Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2024 해외박사(DDOD)

One hundred years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected distortions in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves. This discovery provided for the first time direct evidence of one of the most energetic events in the universe: the merger of two black holes once in an orbit around each other. My research addresses a key unresolved question: How do these gravitational wave sources form in nature? For more than two decades, rapid binary population synthesis codes have been used to address this question. Although these codes have been instrumental in our general understanding of merging compact objects, most rely on analytical fits of single-star evolutionary tracks and parameterized models for interactive phases of binary evolution. This has led to large prediction uncertainties and an inability to explain current observations. Simultaneously, we are experiencing a rise in the number of merger detections and with the advent of next-generation instruments this number will increase 1000-fold, revealing a larger, more diverse population. In my dissertation I focus on improving our understanding of the formation of gravitational wave sources through a comprehensive and physics-focused approach to the details of binary evolution. In this dissertation, I will 1) show how my study of merging binary black holes with the state-of-the-art stellar evolution code MESA challenges common wisdom regarding their formation, 2) describe how incorporating key electromagnetically-observed binary systems enables a more comprehensive study of the formation of gravitational wave sources, and 3) provide an example illustrating the necessity for collaborative research in developing improved, physically-motivated models for binary evolution.