Descent: American Individualism, American Blackness and the Trouble with Invention

Descent is metacritical, ranging across disciplines to take up – as flash points or instances – failed attempts to revolutionize knowledge, considering these as descents, or movements into the deep, that remain stiff or un-poetic in their attitudes toward the American truisms “individualism,” “blackness” and “invention.” Beginning with William Carlos Williams’ formulation of descent (as a practice necessary for establishing national literary identity) in In the American Grain, the project resolves around the question, How can the critic make peace with her desire to dominate the object of critique by proposing its perpetual sameness in relation to the critic? In the context of these concerns, this dissertation offers new perspectives on the work of legal theorist Duncan Kennedy in critical legal studies – by way of Ralph Waldo Emerson – and the black music-centered theories of black aesthetics elaborated in the cultural and literary criticism of Amiri Baraka, Nathaniel Mackey and Fred Moten, proposing a turn away from music as a central trope in African American critical theory. The first two chapters consider the work of legal theorist Duncan Kennedy in critical legal studies (CLS), which attempted an ostensibly radical critique of American law and legal ideology, together with recent assessments of Emerson’s “ideological” commitments. I propose terms upon which to understand Kennedy’s CLS as a failed critique, lacking interest in re-thinking the inaugurating question, What does individualism mean? I argue that the Emersonian sense of personhood offers fortifying tools to contemporary critical theorists who must liberate themselves from crippling obsession with being taken up into the all-pervasive powers they describe. The third (long) chapter, operating as a critical and poetic example of the theoretical groundwork laid in Chapters One and Two. Recognizing the crucial intellectual-historical role of black music to in theoretical elaboration of blackness, I ask whether or how black music remains vital to efforts to describe what (of) blackness is sustaining as art? This is thinking toward re-definition of kinship or communal relationship among black artists and intellectuals, toward construction of new spatial and temporal relationships within which freedom might be played out

Modeling autoregressive conditional skewness and kurtosis with multi-quantile CAViaR

Engle and Manganelli (2004) propose CAViaR, a class of models suitable for estimating conditional quantiles in dynamic settings. Engle and Manganelli apply their approach to the estimation of Value at Risk, but this is only one of many possible applications. Here we extend CAViaR models to permit joint modeling of multiple quantiles, Multi-Quantile (MQ) CAViaR. We apply our new methods to estimate measures of conditional skewness and kurtosis defined in terms of conditional quantiles, analogous to the unconditional quantile-based measures of skewness and kurtosis studied by Kim and White (2004). We investigate the performance of our methods by simulation, and we apply MQ-CAViaR to study conditional skewness and kurtosis of S&P 500 daily returns. JEL Classification: C13, C32Asset returns, CAViaR, conditional quantiles, Dynamic quantiles, Kurtosis, Skewness

VAR for VaR: measuring systemic risk using multivariate regression quantiles.

This paper proposes methods for estimation and inference in multivariate, multi-quantile models. The theory can simultaneously accommodate models with multiple random variables, multiple confidence levels, and multiple lags of the associated quantiles. The proposed framework can be conveniently thought of as a vector autoregressive (VAR) extension to quantile models. We estimate a simple version of the model using market returns data to analyse spillovers in the values at risk (VaR) of different financial institutions. We construct impulse-response functions for the quantile processes of a sample of 230 financial institutions around the world and study how financial institution-specific and system-wide shocks are absorbed by the system.Quantile impulse-responses; spillover; codependence; CAViaR

unWISE tomography of Planck CMB lensing

MB lensing tomography, or the cross-correlation between CMB lensing maps and large-scale structure tracers over a well-defined redshift range, has the potential to map the amplitude and growth of structure over cosmic time, provide some of the most stringent tests of gravity, and break important degeneracies between cosmological parameters. In this work, we use the unWISE galaxy catalog to provide three samples at median redshifts $z \sim 0.6, 1.1$ and 1.5, fully spanning the Dark Energy dominated era, together with the most recent Planck CMB lensing maps. We obtain a combined cross-correlation significance $S/N = 79.3$ over the range of scales $100 < \ell < 1000$. We measure the redshift distribution of unWISE sources by a combination of cross-matching with the COSMOS photometric catalog and cross-correlation with BOSS galaxies and quasars and eBOSS quasars. We also show that magnification bias must be included in our analysis and perform a number of null tests. In a companion paper, we explore the derived cosmological parameters by modeling the non-linearities and propagating the redshift distribution uncertainties.Comment: 51 pages, 22 figures. Comments welcome! Revisions reflect version accepted by JCA

Developing an inclusive model for \u27teacher\u27 professional development

This paper reports on the findings of a recent teaching grant awarded in&nbsp; 2004, from the Australian Teacher Educator\u27s Association (ATEA). The grant enabled a professional development teaching (PDT) team to be established at Norlane West primary School, Geelong. The team comprised of twelve \u27teachers\u27 who included two teacher educators, six Year 5 and 6 teachers&nbsp; and four student teachers. The aim of the project was to examine how a&nbsp; team of new and experienced teachers developed and changed their&nbsp; teaching repertoire and their professional identity through a process of teaching, learning and reflection. What made this particular project unique was the inclusion of student teachers in the PDT team and the action&nbsp; reflection cycle adopted by all members of the team. The reflective cycle consisted of a teacher educator, teacher and the team of student teachers all participating in a filmed teaching experience, editing and reflecting on their own teaching and then sharing the video with the other members of the PDT team. This individual and team reflection process proved to be very&nbsp; successful and an effective model for influencing \u27teacher\u27 professional development.<br /

Video reflection and the formation of teacher identity in a team of pre-service and experienced teachers

This paper discusses a project in which a team of pre-service and experienced teachers, following a teaching development model devised by the authors, reflected on videos of the pre-service teachers teaching literacy. Using a discourse analytic approach, the paper focuses on how teachers\u27 joint reflection contributes to student teacher identity formation. Analysis suggests that reflection, at least in the talk of this team, is a language practice with a distinctive generic structure. Using this structure, participants jointly construct professional teacher identities for themselves and others through the key devices of representation, categorization, evaluation, individualization and inclusion.<br /

Developing a rural teacher education curriculum package

This paper documents the development of a new website (www. rrrtec. net. au) specifically designed to better equip teacher educators to prepare graduates to teach in rural and regional communities. The two year study (2009-2011) that informed the website\u27s creation included three data sources: A literature review of research into rural teacher education, a survey of pre-service students who had completed a rural practicum and interviews with teacher educators about the current strategies they used to raise awareness and understanding of the needs of rural students, their families, and communities. An analysis of the data revealed that teacher educators need to focus more on developing graduates to be not only \u27classroom ready \u27 but also \u27school and community ready\u27. This analysis provided the framework for the creation of a set of curriculum modules and resources including journal articles, film clips, websites and books that teacher educators could readily and publicly access and use in their own classroom teaching.<br /

Renewing rural and regional teacher education curriculum. Final report 2012.

Recruiting and retaining well-prepared teachers for rural and regional schools,remains an ongoing issue faced by all State based jurisdictions in Australia. Based on recent national research, and focused on meeting the needs of teacher educators to better support new teachers to prepare for and experience success as new teachers in rural locations, this ALTC funded project, Renewing Rural and Regional Teacher Education Curriculum (RRRTEC) set out to address this issue by investigating what teacher education could do differently to better prepare teachers for rural and regional workforce needs. As a result of this two year study involving further research, materials audits and curriculum development, a website has been created and designed specifically for all teacher educators to publicly and freely access and use. The RRRTEC website is located at www.rrrtec.net.au. The website has been created as an accessible resource for teacher educators, principals, mentors and others supporting new teachers in rural schools. Focusing on the classroom, the school and the community, it provides a range of high quality resources that will provide easy access to rural and regional teacher education research, curriculum resources and pedagogical strategies for their teacher education students

In-class vs. online administration of concept inventories and attitudinal assessments

This study investigates differences in student responses to in-class and online administrations of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM), and the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS). Close to 700 physics students from 12 sections of three different courses were instructed to complete the concept inventory relevant to their course, either the FCI or CSEM, and the CLASS. Each student was randomly assigned to take one of the surveys in class and the other survey online using the LA Supported Student Outcomes (LASSO) system hosted by the Learning Assistant Alliance (LAA). We examine how testing environments and instructor practices affect participation rates and identify best practices for future use.Comment: 4 pages, 3 tables, 3 figures, Physics Education Research Conference proceeding