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Spirit, Expression, and Community in the Philosophy of Edith Stein:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Dermot MoranThis dissertation examines and elucidates the notion of spirit (Geist) in Stein’s work, particularly the role it plays in her philosophical anthropology and her understanding of intersubjectivity and community. While this notion is central to Stein’s philosophy, very little scholarship focuses on it directly, and there has never been an attempt to trace its development over the whole of Stein’s corpus. I argue that the key to understanding Stein’s notion of spirit is to understand spirit as expressive, and in so doing to recognize expression (or “going out from oneself”) as a fundamental characteristic of the human person. This approach to spirit sheds light on the resolutions Stein’s philosophy offers to the issue of the relationship between body and mind, and of the human person’s place in connection to both the world of physical causality and the world of willing, valuing, meaning, and reasoning (in other words, the world of spirit). Understanding spirit as fundamentally expressive helps us to make sense of what it means to be an individual human being and what it means to be a part of the human community. Although she draws from and synthesizes the ideas of a number of thinkers such as Edmund Husserl, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Stein’s approach is distinctive and, I argue, uniquely suited to comprehensively addressing these questions. I develop this idea of spirit as expressive by examining Stein’s claim that the person is a psycho-physical-spiritual unity that is revealed through empathy. In other words, I know the other to be a person because their being expresses itself to me. This starting point leads to an analysis of Stein’s understanding of the nature of the human person. In examining this psycho-physical-spiritual nature that Stein proposes, her singular notion of Entfaltung or “unfolding” emerges. She claims that the character of the individual person is grounded in a Persönlichkeitskern or “personal core” out of which unfolds the actualization of individual potentialities. Thus, the identity of the individual person is not created by action, but rather is uncovered, revealed, and comes to fruition through action. In unfolding, the individual expresses his or her personhood through spiritual acts, insofar as the individual encounters the world as meaningful and creatively and freely responds to this meaning. In this way, the spiritual self goes out toward the world, and the spiritual life is what Stein calls a “superabundant, diffusive life” of self-expression and self transcendence toward life outside of the self. Furthermore, in unfolding out toward the world and toward other individuals, we also are opened up to receive this self-expression from others (their “going out of themselves”).
Thus, to be spiritual is to participate in a shared world and to be shaped by it; to express oneself to the other, and to be receptive to the other’s expression of spirit. When spirit “goes out of itself” in self-expression, it expresses itself to someone, and the community of self-expressing persons is a community of beings that “mean together,” beings that participate in the sharing of spiritual content and the fruit of spiritual acts. Yet, this self-transcendence is at the same time not a leaving behind of the self; in spiritual acts, individuals “become themselves” as the unfolding of one’s personal core is expressed and uncovered not only to others but also to oneself. In the creativity and freedom of spiritual acts, individuals are brought outside of themselves and at the same time become more at home within themselves insofar as, with the actualization of the individual Persönlichkeitskern, individuals more fully know and express their unique individuality. In this way, I argue, the notion of expression is not only crucial to making sense of Stein’s own account of spirit (and thereby her account of personhood, intersubjectivity, and community), but furthermore, provides a way of understanding the person as inextricably bound up in community without compromising individual identity. In going out toward others in spiritual expression, one becomes more oneself.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Essays in Macroeconomics and Labor Economics:
No full textThesis advisor: Theodore PapageorgiouThesis advisor: Robert UlbrichtThis thesis contains three independent essays on topics in macroeconomics and labor economics. In the first chapter, I investigate the implications of the increasing share of older businesses in the United States economy for labor market outcomes across workers in different age groups. I find that over the period 1994-2019, employment and wages fall by more for younger cohorts, driven by a ``firm competition” channel. Moreover, workers are better sorted, but receive a lower share of the match surplus, on average. In the second chapter, my co-author Div Bhagia and I ask whether broad sectoral shifts in labor demand account for the divergence of employment outcomes between Black and White men after 1970. We find that they explain no more than one-fifth of the increase in the employment-to-population ratio gap, and that the widening of this gap is primarily driven by differential responses to labor demand shocks across groups. In the third chapter, I quantify the roles of increases in job separations and decreases in job finding in recessionary increases in unemployment. I find that while job separations lead job finding, both margins contribute significantly to unemployment fluctuations. I conclude that future research should not ignore the interaction between unemployment inflows and unemployment outflows in explaining the cyclical behavior of the labor market.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Neural circuitries for the control of feeding during novelty in male and female rats:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Gorica PetrovichThesis advisor: John ChristiansonThe influence of novelty on feeding behavior is significant and can override both homeostatic and hedonic drives due to the uncertainty of danger. The potential risks associated with consuming novel foods or consuming foods in a novel environment can lead to avoidance. While it is established that both novel foods and novel feeding environments can reduce or suppress feeding, it remains unclear how these two factors interact with each other to impact consumption and whether there are sex differences. Additionally, the neural mechanisms that underlie the impact of novelty on consumption are not well understood. This dissertation aimed to investigate the behavioral and neural mechanisms of the impact of novelty during food consumption in male and female rats. We first examined the consumption of novel and familiar foods in novel or familiar contexts for male and female rats (Chapter 2). Acutely food deprived rats were tested in either their familiar or novel context and were given two foods, one familiar and one novel. They underwent repeated consumption tests to allow us to track habituation to novelty overtime. Results indicated a robust behavioral sex difference in consumption during habituation. Males habituated to novel foods faster than females who showed suppressed consumption throughout testing. Next, we aimed to determine the neural circuitry mediating consumption of novel foods and feeding in novel environments (Chapter 3). Male and female rats were tested for consumption in either a familiar or in a novel context and were given either a familiar or novel food. Rats were perfused after testing to determine Fos induction. Results revealed increased activation in the novel context condition within several key areas: the central (CEA) and basolateral complex nuclei of the amygdala, the thalamic paraventricular (PVT) and reuniens nuclei, the nucleus accumbens (ACB), and the medial prefrontal cortex prelimbic and infralimbic areas. Additionally, novel food condition increased activation within the CEA, anterior basomedial nucleus of the amygdala, and anterior PVT. Sex differences in activation patterns were also observed within specific regions. The capsular and lateral CEA had greater activation for male groups and the anterior PVT, ACBv core, and ACB ventral shell had greater activation for female groups. We also investigated different patterns of related regions and the nature of those relationships and found that the CEA is a pivotal hub in our network. Therefore, we investigated the recruitment of specific inputs to the CEA in male and female rats during consumption of a novel food in a novel context (Chapter 4). We used a combination of retrograde tract tracing and Fos induction to determine whether PVTp, ILA, and AId neurons that send direct projections to the CEA were specifically recruited during the consumption test under novelty and whether that activation was sex specific. Results indicated that during consumption of a novel food in a novel context, connections from the PVTp to the CEA were recruited more heavily compared to rats that were consuming familiar food in a familiar context. These results suggest that projections from the PVTp to CEA may be driving the inhibition of feeding during novelty processing. Overall, this dissertation provides valuable insights into the behavioral and neural mechanisms of consumption under novelty and allows us to begin building the circuitry that underlies feeding inhibition during novelty processing.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Psychology
TheRole of Mentalizing in Coordinating Cooperative Behavior and Social Norm Cognition:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Katherine McAuliffeThesis advisor: Angela JohnstonHuman cooperation is unparalleled in the natural world and is a defining feature of human social life—it shapes nearly every social interaction we experience, from geopolitical conflict, to collective bargaining, to team collaboration. However, cooperation also presents a challenge—it is often personally costly or risky to cooperate. How are humans able to overcome these costs and risks in favor of the interest of the group? To address this question, it is important to investigate the cognitive abilities that allow us to successfully cooperate with others. One important ability for cooperation is mentalizing—the ability to represent other agents’ beliefs, knowledge, desires, and intentions. The ability to think about other agents’ minds in order to predict how they will behave (e.g., whether they will cooperate or free-ride) is an important component of our own cooperative behavior, particularly in the context of coordination—a type of cooperative interaction where cooperation is mutually beneficial but risky. I test the idea that our ability to represent the beliefs of others plays a critical role in successful cooperation. Studies 1 and 2 examine one cognitive ability for representing others’ knowledge—common knowledge—that underlies cooperation by reducing uncertainty about others’ cooperative behavior. Studies 3 and 4 investigate how we make inferences about others’ beliefs from how they behave and how that influences our own cooperative behavior in the context of social norms. Studies 2 and 4 take a developmental approach to investigate how early emerging mentalizing is for cooperative behavior to better understand how foundational it is in social cognition. Altogether, the results of these studies suggest that the ability to represent other agents’ beliefs in order to predict their behavior plays a fundamental role in supporting successful cooperation.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Psychology
Avenues of Choice: The Tax Credit Scholarship and the Politics Behind the Marketplace
Get PDFThesis advisor: Peter SkerryK-12 education policy has become increasingly centralized and technocratic, while falling short of achieving policy objectives. Young people are generally maladjusted to the personal and professional challenges of contemporary life. Parents experience diminishing political influence over the form and substance of their children’s education. I argue that improvement of the quality of private education requires greater emphasis on local political dynamics. School choice offers a free market alternative to a public school system which has largely ceded decision making to avowedly apolitical bureaucrats. Ironically, politics remains essential for the formation and regulation of the very policies that enable the marketplace to thrive as in the case of the tax credit scholarship. The politics behind the marketplace is brought to light by examining the local political relationships required to establish and maintain the Illinois Invest in Kids Tax Credit Scholarship (TCS), a school choice policy of unprecedented magnitude in Illinois. Furthermore, this research examines local dynamics among parents in the Archdiocese of Chicago, many of whom benefit from the aforementioned tax credit scholarships and manifest a variety of views on the teleological purpose of the parochial school. In a nation that is both diverse and increasingly polarized, successful governance of community schools depends upon discerning leaders and the practice of reinvigorated federalism.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Political Science
Toward an Anti-Racist Political Theology: Reading Johann Baptist Metz and James H. Cone Against American Anti-Black Necropolitics
No full textThesis advisor: Andrew L. PrevotAnti-Black racism and white supremacy are critical and interrelated contemporary crises. Achille Mbembe theorizes the confluence of these crises in the concepts of necropolitics and Black reason. But Mbembe does not elaborate the historical relationship between anti-Black necropolitics and Christian thought. I address this aporia in my dissertation while also formulating a theological response through an integrated reading of James Cone and Johann Baptist Metz. In Chapter One, I adopt Mbembe’s framework to contend that the uncritical coöptation of Black reason by white Christianity has resulted in a necropolitical theology, which I demonstrate through an evaluation of three theological loci: anthropology, Christology, and eschatology. Turning to constructive possibilities, chapter two introduces Cone and Metz, whose theologies I read against necropolitical theology. Chapter Two argues that Cone’s revaluation of Blackness as God’s intent for humanity meets Metz’s call for an anthropological revolution of white Christians at the point of conversion: a decision to die to whiteness and become Black with God. Chapter Three emphasizes revelation in Cone’s Christology as an objective Black event; the subjective, ecstatic encounter with the crucified and resurrected Christ; and the necessity of the Cross for theological imagination. Metz’s Holy Saturday Christology, specifically, his paradigmatic memoria passionis, grounded in the descensus ad infernos, complements Cone’s notion of concrete and transformative encounter with Jesus as it emphasizes solidarity with the oppressed. Chapter Four addresses the deformation of Christian hope by necropolitical theology. I integrate Cone’s analysis of Black hope in existential, material, and apocalyptic interpretations of eschatology with Metz’s eschatological proviso which, above all, suggests that one must see the future from the memory of the suffering and the dead. In the United States, I argue that this means white Christians are called to relational praxis in solidarity with oppressed Black communities. In Chapter Five, the conclusion, I look to the pericope on discipleship in Mark 8 in tandem with the theological interventions from Cone and Metz to provide an assessment of what it might mean for white Christians to become Black with God.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Theology
Stereoselective Radical Cyclopropanation by Co(II)-Based Metalloradical Catalysis:
No full textThesis advisor: X. Peter ZhangThesis advisor: James P. MorkenChapter 1. Stereoselective Cyclopropanation of Alkenes with Alkynyl- and Vinyl-Substituted Diazo Compounds Alkynyl- and vinyl-substituted cyclopropanes are ubiquitous structural motifs in drug molecules and bioactive compounds. In addition, alkynyl- and vinyl-substituted cyclopropanes may serve as useful intermediates for stereoselective organic synthesis. Metal-catalyzed cyclopropanation of alkenes with alkynyl- and vinyl-substituted diazo compounds offers a potentially general approach for stereoselective construction of these valuable three-membered ring structures. This chapter summarizes the development of stereoselective olefin cyclopropanation with alkynyl- and vinyl-substituted diazo compounds.
Chapter 2. Metalloradical Activation of In Situ-Generated α-Alkynyldiazomethanes for Asymmetric Radical Cyclopropanation of Alkenes
We have developed a Co(II)-based metalloradical system that is highly effective for asymmetric radical cyclopropanation of alkenes with in situ-generated α-alkynyldiazomethanes. Through fine-tuning the cavity-like environments of D₂-symmetric chiral amidoporphyrins as the supporting ligand, the optimized Co(II)-based metalloradical system is broadly applicable to different alkynyldiazomethanes for asymmetric cyclopropanation of a broad range of alkenes, providing general access to valuable chiral alkynyl cyclopropanes in high yields with excellent diastereoselectivities and enantioselectivities.
Chapter 3. Asymmetric Radical Process for Cyclopropanation of Alkenes with In Situ-Generated α-Vinyldiazomethanes
We have demonstrated the feasibility of using vinyl aldehyde-derived sulfonylhydrazones as new metalloradicophiles for the generation of allylic radicals. Through fine-tuning the cavity-like environments of D₂-symmetric chiral amidoporphyrins as supporting ligands, the key α-Co(III)-allylic radical intermediates are exclusively engaged in the highly asymmetric cyclopropanation with wide-ranging alkenes in the optimized Co(II)-based metalloradical system, as shown broadly applicable to activate different α-vinyldiazomethanes.
Chapter 4. Asymmetric Synthesis of Vinyl-Substituted Cyclopropanes by Radical C-H Alkylation from Alkynes and In Situ-Generated Alkyldiazomethanes via Co(II)-Based Metalloradical Catalysis
We have successfully expanded the application of Co(II)-based MRC by applying in-situ generated alkyldiazomethanes as new radical precursors for stereoselective synthesis of vinyl-substituted cyclopropanes by radical cascade C-H alkylation of alkynes. Through fine-tuning of D₂-symmetric chiral amidoporphyrins as the supporting ligands, the Co(II)-catalyzed radical cascade process, which proceeds in a single operation under mild conditions, enables asymmetric construction of vinyl-substituted cyclopropanes in high yields with excellent diastereoselectivities and good enantioselectivities.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
Out of Service?: Individual Experiences of an Occupational Identity Existential Threat
No full textThesis advisor: Michael G. PrattThis work focuses on an Occupational Identity Existential Threat (OIET): the experience of a possible permanent loss of an individual’s ability to claim, enact, or draw meaning from a valued occupational identity. OIETs occur among members when their occupation is in such decline that it may not survive. Identity threats from occupational demise can affect entire collectives and impact not only individuals’ identities but their relationships at and with their work; and consequently, can have important consequences on occupational members’ lives. Yet, our current theories are ill-equipped to understand how individuals experience these threats as they tend to focus on non-existential threats coming from clear losses. To address how occupational members experience an OIET, I followed a grounded theory approach and conducted an inductive qualitative study of Les Clefs d’Or concierges in the USA. I have completed about 130hrs of observations and I collected a total of 101 interviews (with 85 informants) over a period of two and a half years, plus longitudinal interviews with key occupational actors. At the occupational level, I find that the leadership of the occupation entered a ‘survival’ mode by providing support to their members, as well as narratives generating hopefulness for the maintenance of their occupation. At the individual level, I uncover several paths that Les Clefs d’Or members followed when faced with OIET: withdrawing, waiting, searching and defending. Each path had distinct outcomes on how individuals related to the occupation, as well as their mental health and relationships with other members. Finally, I describe the theoretical and practical implications of this work.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Management and Organization
Essays in Labor Economics:
No full textThesis advisor: Claudia C. OlivettiThesis advisor: Theodore T. PapageorgiouThis dissertation consists of a collection of three essays in Labor Economics, all studying the careers of young American workers. The first two essays, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, analyze the early-career gender wage gap among recent cohorts of highly educated US workers. The third essay, Chapter 3, analyzes long-run changes occurred over the last four decades in the supply of overtime work among American employees. Chapter 1 provides an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the careers of Millennial American college graduates from labor market entry to five to ten years later. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997) I neatly reconstruct workers' careers from labor market entry and provide a variety of reduced-form evidence showing that gender differences in the wage gains that workers obtain when they change jobs determine a large portion of the early-career gender wage gap and of its expansion over years of experience. I show that these results are robust and hold irrespective of young workers' marital and parental status.
In light of the results provided in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 I study the contribution of the main determinants of wage gains from job changes to the early-career gender wage gap among highly-educated American workers. Specifically, first, I estimate a structural model of hedonic job search to estimate the extent to which men and women differ in terms of search frictions, of preferences for valuable amenities (flexibility and parental leave) and of the wage offers received conditional on the provision of amenities. Second, I use the model estimates to perform a series of counterfactual analyses and quantify the impact of search frictions, preferences and wage offers on the early-career gender wage gap and on its expansion due to job search and job changes. I find that young men and women share similar preferences for amenities. Compared to men, however, women are offered lower wages, and predominantly so in jobs that provide benefits. Since these jobs typically offer higher wages too, the gender pay gap expands as workers climb the job ladder to enter employment relationships that offer better wage-benefits bundles. The higher price that women pay for amenities explains 42% of the early-career growth in the wage gap that the model attributes to job search and job changes. The remaining portion is explained by the lower wages offered to women in jobs that do not provide benefits (25%) and by women's stronger search frictions (33%).
In Chapter 3 I study the determinants of long-run trends in overtime work. I document that work hours have been increasing in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s and steadily declining in the 2000s and 2010s, and that these trends were predominantly driven by secular changes in the share of young, salaried employees working long hours (more than 40 hours per week) in relatively high-pay jobs. I then provide a model that explains the evolving long-run trends in overtime as an outcome of underlying changes in labor demand that affected the life-cycle wage gains that employees expect to obtain when supplying overtime work hours. I empirically test and validate the implications of the model, and show that long-run changes in the wage premia for working long hours can explain the rise and fall in overtime work that I document. Finally, I estimate long-run trends in persistent and transitory wage dispersion and show that persistent wage dispersion grew in the 1980s and 1990s and declined later on. To the extent that shocks to wage gains from working long hours result into an increase in the spread of permanent income across employees typically supplying different amounts of work hours, I show that a rise and fall in wage premia for overtime work reconciles the observed reversed-U shaped trend in both overtime work and persistent wage dispersion. These results are suggestive that, after surging in the 1980s and the 1990s, the “fortunes of the youth'” may have been declining later on, due to shifts in labor demand that flattened the life-cycle wage profiles that young, salaried employees can obtain when supplying long work hours. These results can also help reconcile recent evidence that the demand for skill and cognitive tasks and the college wage premium have been declining, while the age wage gap has been increasing. Conversely, the results I obtain question theories that explain long-run trends in US men's labor supply through secular increases in the marginal value of leisure due to improvements in leisure technology.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Developing a Surface-initiated Polymerization System from a Redox-switchable Catalyst for Polyamide Synthesis:
No full textThesis advisor: Jeffery A. ByersThesis advisor: Petter ZhangThis thesis discusses the development of a surface-initiated N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) polymerization system from a redox-switchable catalyst for polyamide synthesis and further efforts towards the synthesis of polypeptide-based materials through the integration of NCA synthesis and its polymerization. In Chapter one, the most used methods to obtain polypeptide-based materials as well as their significant limitations are introduced. A new strategy is presented to access the polypeptide-based materials based on the integrated catalysis under spatial and temporal control. In Chapter two, a strategy to allow the attachment of a redox-switchable NCA polymerization catalyst on surface of titania for the synthesis of polyamide brushes will be demonstrated. Investigations about the kinetics of this surface-initiated ring-opening polymerization will be presented by carrying out the reaction in batch and under flow. Chapter three will discuss efforts towards achieving the integration of NCA synthesis and NCA polymerization, which includes an additional anchoring method to support polymerization catalyst and compatibility tests between the two separate reactions.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry