This dissertation examines queer open mics as models for negotiating the ambivalences of neoliberalism and identity politics that herald a participatory form of cultural democracy. Like open mics generally, queer open mics are amateur performance venues where musicians, dancers, spoken word poets, and more perform live for one another. Unlike open mics generally, queer open mics center LGBTQ people, focusing on activism, healing, and community building rather than polishing performance skills. Using ethnographic data from three queer open mics in California and New Jersey, my work sheds new light on how urban amateur musical communities use performance as activism. I examine how queer people—specifically queer people of color—in the US gather to produce live performances as an ingroup practice. This research challenges recent claims arguing open mics act as sites for individual expression and professionalization by examining the community-focused and intentionally amateur character of these queer open mics. By deploying queer and critical race studies to analyze open mics, this research works to expand musicology's understanding of amateur performance by illuminating the important liberatory work queer and trans amateur artists do in their everyday lives.

HIV-1 latency is a phenomenon of transcriptional silencing wherein components of the host epigenetic machinery impose reversible restrictions to viral chromatin. Bromodomain-containing factors are emergent epigenetic effector proteins that recognize acetyl-lysine residues, and have been implicated in the regulation of HIV-1 transcription & latency. This dissertation presents a review of HIV-1 transcription and viral epigenetics, with a particular focus on the roles of protein acetylation and bromodomain-containing proteins in these processes. Original scientific work describing a novel corepressive function of the bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) subfamily member bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) is reported. Specifically, we establish that the understudied short isoform of BRD4 interacts with SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling machines to maintain transcriptional repression of latent HIV-1 via nucleosome positioning. Through genetic and pharmacological loss of function, chromatin biology, and immunoprecipitation experiments, we detail the physical and functional interaction between BRD4 and BRG1, a catalytic SWI/SNF subunit. Although primarily a gene-centered study surrounding the latent HIV-1 promoter, this dissertation also includes high throughput sequencing data establishing genomic co-binding of BRD4 and BRG1 at both coding and non-coding regions that is disrupted under pharmacological inhibition of BET bromodomains. These data i.) uncover SWI/SNF remodelers as critical downstream targets of BET inhibitors in the reversal of HIV-1 latency, which is a promising therapeutic strategy to achieve eradication in infected individuals, ii.) support the hypothesis that BRD4 executes isoform-specific functions, iii.) underscore the essential role of chromatin in HIV-1 latency maintenance and iv.) provide a global view of genomic regulation by BRD4 and SWI/SNF. Lastly, this dissertation includes preliminary data demonstrating that the long isoform of BRD4 is itself subject to reversible acetylation. We have mapped a cluster of acetylation-competent lysine residues within the long BRD4 C-terminus, generated modification-specific antibodies, and begun to characterize the effects of this BRD4 modification on its transactivation capacity via the P-TEFb kinase. Collectively, the work presented herein advances our knowledge of both isoforms of the bromodomain-containing protein BRD4, and further develops our understanding of the role of chromatin in HIV-1 transcription & latency.

Abstract

TOWARDS A PEOPLE’S SOCIAL EPIDEMIOLOGY:

An Intergenerational Study of Place, Embodiment, & Health via

Participatory Action Research with Residents of Public Housing

By

Ryan J. Petteway

Doctor of Public health

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Rachel Morello-Frosch, Chair

Social Epidemiology has made critical contributions to understanding health inequities. However, translation of social epidemiology science into meaningful and timely action remains a challenge. With so much focus within the field on issues like social position, discrimination, racism, power, and privilege, there has been surprisingly little deliberation about the extent and value of social inclusion and equity within the field itself, and how the challenge of translation might be more readily met through re-envisioning the role of the people in the research enterprise—reimagining what “social” could, or even should, mean for the future of the field. Place-health research represents a particularly promising subfield within which to emphasize these principles, especially within the context of public housing.

Thus, the overall aim for my dissertation work was to conduct research at the nexus of public health and public housing by integrating participatory research methods and information communication technologies (ICTs) to democratize the research process and facilitate local action. In this spirit, my work develops, introduces, and field-tests 3 interrelated and nested concepts that, in application, represent a model for inclusive and equitable social epidemiology: A People’s Social Epidemiology, the Placescape, and Geographies of Embodiment.

First, Chapter 1 introduces a conceptual framework for A People’s Social Epidemiology—a multicomponent and tiered framework to guide social epidemiology research/practice to become more inclusive and equitable, improve knowledge translation, and facilitate timely, locally relevant action—essentially, to enhance the “social” in social epidemiology. The framework draws upon theory, concepts, and principles from social epidemiology, community-based participatory research (CBPR), and information and communication technologies for development (ICTD). This work specifically highlights place-health research as a subfield particularly suited for A People’s Social Epidemiology approach, and the framework was accordingly “field-tested” through my development and implementation of the People’s Social Epidemiology Project (PSEP)—an intergenerational CBPR study of place, embodiment, and health with residents of public housing.

For the PSEP, parent-youth dyads were recruited from a predominantly Black public housing community and trained in core principles related to social epidemiology and health equity, and fundamental aspects of public health research and CBPR. They were then trained in 4 participatory research methods: Photovoice, Activity Space Mapping, X-Ray Mapping, and

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Participatory GIS. All research methods were completed by the participants themselves. First, participants used Photovoice (via cellphones) to identify, photo-document, and describe their important daily places and specific exposures/opportunities within each place they perceive affects their health. Next, they used Activity Space Mapping to geolocate and map their Photovoice photos, identify any additional non-photographed places, and to rate and provide time estimates for each mapped place. Then, using a cognitive mapping method known as X-Ray Mapping, they created symbolic representations of place-embodiment reflecting how each of their mapped places affects their bodies/health. Finally, constituting Participatory GIS, they integrated and digitally mapped their work via a web-based multimedia-enabled ICT platform, Local Ground. This platform allows participants to create, print, and digitally share their place-health research maps with the broader community and city officials.

Anchored in A People’s Social Epidemiology, Chapter 2 introduces the Placescape framework. The goal of the work presented here was to develop and field-test a place-health framework that: 1) accounts for the multi-nodal nature of “place” and its contingent spatial, temporal, and social inter-nodal connections/divisions; 2) elucidates potential intergenerational and life-stage differences in place experiences/perceptions; and 3) explicitly engages the sociopolitical mechanisms that make, unmake, and remake place over time. A framework for a placescape approach was developed drawing from place-health, social epidemiology, participatory research, geography, and sociology literatures. This framework was then applied to the PSEP study, with parents and youth using the above combination of participatory methods to map their “placescapes”. Findings revealed clear spatial and temporal differences in adult and youth placescapes, as well as a very distinct pattern of place “nodes” among youth—indicating a multinodal placescape.

Lastly, rooted in the Placescape framework, Chapter 3 introduces the Geographies of Embodiment concept through detailing the process and findings of a novel cognitive mapping methodology to elucidate subjective notions of place-embodiment within place-health research—X-Ray Mapping. This work aims to enhance place-health research efforts by furthering our understanding of: 1) which places matter for health and when (i.e. spatially- and temporally-specific notions of “place”); 2) how these places matter—the processes/mechanisms of the physiological embodiment of place; and 3) intergenerational and life-stage differences in place-embodiment experiences/perceptions. Findings revealed clear spatial differences between adult and youth geographies of embodiment, as well clear perceptual differences in which body areas are affected by place and how.

Overall, the work presented in these three chapters outlines a framework for conducting more inclusive and equitable—and more practicable and actionable—social epidemiology research, develops a new paradigm for understanding/researching place and health—especially within public housing communities—rooted in intergenerational and participatory approaches, and introduces a novel research methodology to elucidate subjective notions of place-embodiment within place-health research. These combined contributions improve efforts to appropriately conceptualize and measure “place”, and further understanding of place, place-embodiment, and health within public housing. Moreover, these contributions offer guidance on how to move towards a more inclusive and equitable social epidemiology research practice—one that is of, for, and by the people, and not simply about them/us.

After correcting for their light-curve shape and color, Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are precise cosmological distance indicators. However, there remains a non-zero intrinsic scatter in the differences between measured distance and distances inferred from a cosmological model (i.e., Hubble residuals). We have found that Hubble residuals are correlated with different properties of SN Ia host galaxies (e.g., mass, star-formation rate, and metallicity). Cosmological analyses attempt to correct for these effects empirically without any physical knowledge of the progenitor system, potentially introducing a bias. In this thesis, I detail several projects aimed at uncovering the dominant physical sources of intrinsic scatter.

First, I will present Kaepora, a relational database for SN Ia observations containing 4975 public spectra of 777 SNe Ia. We have significantly improved this data set by inspecting these spectra for quality, removing galactic emission lines and cosmic rays, generating variance spectra, and correcting for the reddening caused by both MW and host-galaxy dust. Using this large homogenized sample, we produce composite spectra that have been precisely controlled for phase and light-curve shape. These composite spectra reproduce known trends with other optical properties of SNe Ia, and by controlling for these effects, they can be used to investigate a wide parameter space. Critically, with these methods I will show that SN Ia distances can potentially be improved with the knowledge of their ejecta velocities.

I will then describe late time observations of the UV-flashing high-velocity SN Ia 2019yvq. We identify strong Calcium emission in the nebular spectrum of this SN and argue that this indicates SN 2019yvq was likely the result of a sub-Chandrasekhar mass double-detonation explosion. It is possible that 2019yvq-like SNe contribute to our cosmological samples, and the presence of multiple progenitor channels could be a source of Hubble residual intrinsic scatter. A better understanding of SN Ia progenitor environments (which may correlate with progenitor channel) could help us discern the relative contributions of multiple progenitor channels in cosmological samples.

Finally, I will present preliminary results from the Foundation/Swope host galaxy survey (a project which has spanned my entire graduate career). We have obtained optical spectroscopy for 372 out of 517 total SN host galaxies in the Foundation and Swope combined cosmological SN sample (the largest low-z sample). The mass-metallicity relationship of our preliminary sample is consistent with similar samples and contains some of the lowest mass galaxies studied in a cosmological sample. Our sample also shows evidence for a "metallicity-step" using measurements from both the galaxy nucleus and the supernova location. With the full sample, we hope to constrain the functional form of this relationship and better understand the underlying physical cause of the empirical host-galaxy correction.