SAMPLE COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

Philosophy and Literature

 

  • How have post-structuralists argued against the traditional models of historiography? Do you find such critiques convincing?
  • Hayden White argues that historical narratives have no cognitive significance whatsoever. First, what are these arguments, and, second, do you find them convincing?
  • How would Habermas argue against Hayden White’s skepticism about the cognitive validity of historiography?
  • David Carr and others have marshaled strong arguments against post-structuralist. First, what are these arguments, and do you find them convincing?
  • What is Husserl’s account of temporality in Internal Time Consciousness, and how might post-structuralists such Hayden White, Louis Mink, or Michel Foucault argue against it?
  • How does Paul Ricouer argue against David Carr’s claim that he, Ricouer, succumbs to historicist relativity? Do you find Ricouer’s defense wholly plausible?
  • How could Habermas’s theory of meaning be used to reconcile the apparent dichotomy between modernist and post-modernist approaches to historiography?
  • How might Heidegger’s account of breakdowns be used to reconcile apparent dichotomy between modernist and post-modernist approaches to historiography?
  • What is Bakhtin’s distinction between epic and novel narratives, and what repercussions might this distinction have on our understanding of (1) emotions, (2) identity, (3) action, or (4) perception? [choose only one]
  • How does Merleau-Ponty criticize both empiricist and intellectualist accounts of temporality, and how might this account be used to resolve the impasse between the post-modernist model of the fragmented self versus the modernist model of the unified self?
  • How does Heidegger account for how tools are present to us in our everyday activities, and how might this enriched conceptualization of human activity be related to debates about the temporal structure of human selfhood?
  • What, according to Heidegger, is the temporal structure of everydayness, and how might it be used in a critique of communitarian accounts of identity formation?
  • What, according to Heidegger, is the temporal structure of everydayness, and where might one locate this type of temporal unity within Bakhtin’s historical taxonomy of narrative forms given in the essay “Forms of Time and the Chronotope of the Novel?
  • Relying upon Genevieve Lloyd’s account of Humean and Kantian conceptions of the self in Being in Time, discuss the ways in which the contemporary dichotomy between modernist and postmodernist is and is not a mere variant of traditional empiricist and intellectualist models of mind.
  • What is Bakhtin’s historical taxonomy of Western narrative forms, and how does he defend the claim that there is development, and not simply difference, among different ways of telling stories? Do you find Bakhtin’s basic assumption in offering this taxonomy -- namely, that everyday experience and action is a complex temporal structure – plausible in light of post-structuralist criticism?
  • How does Julia Kristeva criticize Husserl’s account of intentionality and semantic meaning, and what alternative conceptualization does she put in its stead? Do you find such a language-theoretic defense of the “unconscious” important in understanding how poetry works?
  • How does Habermas argue against intentionalist semantics (Grice), use theories of meaning (Wittgenstein), and truth-conditional semantics (Frege)? Does this theory of meaning help us understand the type of validity claim we raise in narrative self-presentations?
  • Compare and contrast the basic narrative structure of the ancient epic (say, The Gilgamesh Epic or Beowulf), the traditional Bildungsroman (say, Emile or The Heart of Darkness), and the postmodern novel (say, The Crying of Lot 49 or Mason Dixon) using Bakhtin’s taxonomy of chronotopic forms. Does any one of these forms more closely approximate “the real experience of time and space,” as Bakhtin would have it?
  • What is Deconstructionist criticism, and how might a deconstructionist read The Heart of Darkness? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is New Historicist criticism, and how might a New Historicist read The Heart of Darkness? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Feminist criticism, and how might a feminist read The Heart of Darkness? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Cultural criticism, and how might a Cultural Critic read The Heart of Darkness? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Psychoanalytic criticism, and how might a Psychoanalytic critic read The Heart of Darkness? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences.
  • What is Deconstructionist criticism, and how might a deconstructionist read The Crying of Lot 49? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is New Historicist criticism, and how might a New Historicist read The Crying of Lot 49? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Feminist criticism, and how might a feminist read The Crying of Lot 49? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Cultural criticism, and how might a Cultural Critic read The Crying of Lot 49? Does this reading illuminate in anything about the nature of our everyday experiences?
  • What is Psychoanalytic criticism, and how might a Psychoanalytic critic read The Crying of Lot 49? Does this reading illuminate in anything the nature of our everyday experiences.