This project is framed by a dilemma: representations of teaching practice are critical in teacher education, and yet the representations we rely on dangerously oversimplify teaching. My central questions emerge from this dilemma. In telling stories about teaching, how messy can the story be before it becomes unintelligible? Why does messiness matter and what does it produce for teachers-to-be? After examining both canonical accounts of teacher knowledge and emergent research that is productively disrupting the field, I draw on the work of Karen Barad to help me imagine both a new way of telling teaching stories, what I call diffractive storytelling, and a new way of thinking about their use in teacher education. In particular, I take up Barad’s concept of apparatus to consider what knowing is made possible by traditional teacher stories, what knowing is foreclosed, and what these possibilities and limitations mean for teacher education. Finally, I turn to other apparatuses at work in teacher education, especially standardized assessments such as edTPA, the new performance-based assessment of teacher readiness being implemented across the country. I argue that attending carefully to the apparatus-ness of the instruments used in teacher preparation allows us to contest the naturalization of narrow conceptions of teaching practice and sustains the paradox of holding to standards while resisting standardization.

The research question that motivates this study is: how might I, together with a collective of dance artists, explore stability while embracing instability? Looking at the precarious lives of independent dance artists in the context of Europe, this research seeks ways to understand and cope with the various unstable aspects that come with this lifestyle and profession. I place this study in relation to current economic trends where the individual is increasingly in focus, with very few social security rights, and where the dancer is often faced with solitary living and working situations. Furthermore, today’s dancers are often no longer working for a single choreographer, nor solely working as a dancer – but are rather entering many different projects and roles, arguably contributing to a life constantly subject to change. In this research, together with a group of dance artists, I explore understandings of instability and stability, and furthermore investigate how collective action might reinforce senses of stability. I, as the researcher, have applied a performative, practice-led research methodology, along with support from post-humanist/feminist theories. The findings of this research demonstrate how instability can be viewed as a state of not knowing within the precarious life of a dance artist but also within creative processes, and that trust is important in order to cope with the unknown. The findings have further led me to discuss the complexity and entangling of stability and instability, unfolding in a joint phrasing of in/stability, where I discuss how the fluid practice of dance not only corresponds with the wider socio-political landscape but also to an ever-changing world.  Keywords: independent dance artist; precariat; collective; leadership; collaboration; diffractive analysis

The thesis comprehensively investigates 2 pcs of ferrous and 14 pcs of bronze Celtic artefacts from a region of Zdejciny by Beroun. The study by means of ore microscopy, x-ray fluorescent microspectrometry, chemical microanalysis, Raman microspectrometry and x-ray powder diffractive analysis has showed that the bronze artefacts are made mainly of bronze. The phases present in the studied items correspond to fields and + of the Cu-Sn phase diagram. Content of Sn in bronze ranges between 4 and 33 wt.%. For the bronze selected items there was also Vickers microhardness measured. There were two artefacts where areas with a significant lead enrichment were found. Corrosive products were also deeply analysed and identified.