Cultural Studies – English UGC NET – Solved PYQs

1. In his preface to The Order of Things, Foucault mentions being influenced by a Latin American writer and his work. Choose the correct answer: (UGC NET Dec 2012)

(1) Marquez – “The Solitude of Latin America”
(2) Borges – “Chinese Encyclopaedia”
(3) Juan Rulfo – Pedro Paramo
(4) Alejo Carpentier – “On the Marvelous in America”

2. According to the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci: (UGC NET Dec 2012)

(1) Hegemony is synonymous with domination
(2) Hegemony involves a degree of consent on the part of subject people.
(3) Hegemony involves a degree of coercion on the part of a dominant political entity.
(4) Hegemony is synonymous with subjugation

3. Combine the statements correctly: According to Homi Bhabha (UGC NET Dec 2012)

1. Mimicry is not mere copying or emulating the colonizer’s culture, behaviour and manners.

2. But it is further aimed at perfection and excess.

3. Mimicry is mere copying the colonizer’s culture, behaviour and manners.

4. But is informed by both mockery and a certain menace.

(1) 1 and 4
(2) 1 and 2
(3) 3 and 4
(4) 3 and 2

4. In which of his essays does Homi Bhabha discuss the ‘discovery’ of English in colonial India? (UGC NET Dec 2012)

(1) “Signs taken for Wonders”
(2) “Mimicry”
(3) Nation and Narration
(4) “The Commitment to Theory”

5. The term homology means a correspondence between two or more structures. Who developed a theory of relations between literary works and social classes in terms of homologies? (UGC NET Dec 2012)

(1) Raymond Williams
(2) Christopher Caudwell
(3) Lucien Goldmann
(4) Antonio Gramsci

6. According to the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci: (UGC NET Dec 2012)

(1) Hegemony is synonymous with domination
(2) Hegemony involves a degree of consent on the part of subject people.
(3) Hegemony involves a degree of coercion on the part of a dominant political entity.
(4) Hegemony is synonymous with subjugation

7. Why does Jean Baudrillard adopt Disneyland as his own sign? (UGC NET June 2012)

(1) Disneyland is the most noticeable cultural sign in postmodern world.
(2) Disneyland captures essences and non-essences of reality.
(3) Disneyland announces its fictiveness implying a counterbalancing reality.
(4) Disneyland is both appearance and reality.

8. A Subaltern perspective is one where (UGC NET June 2012)

(1) Power structures define language and command.
(2) The politically dispossessed may be voiceless and excluded from history.
(3) Storytelling becomes stereotyped.
(4) Language traps and liberates simultaneously.

9. Identify the correctly matched group: (UGC NET June 2012)

(1) Third Space – Wolfgang Iser; Hybridity – Edward Soja; Reception aesthetics – Saussure; Langue – Homi Bhabha
(2) Third Space – Ernst Bloch; Hybridity – Edward Said; Reception aesthetics – Eve Sedgwick; Langue – Frazer
(3) Third Space – Edward Soja; Hybridity – Homi Bhabha; Reception aesthetics – Wolfgang Iser; Langue – Ferdinand de Saussure
(4) Third Space – Frazer; Hybridity – Sedgwick; Reception aesthetics – Soja; Langue – Edward Said

10. Identify the group of critical concepts aligned with their theorists: (UGC NET Dec 2013)

(1) Carnivalesque – Baudrillard; Habitus – Bourdieu; Flaneur – Benjamin; Chora – Spivak; Simulacra – Gramsci
(2) Habitus – Bourdieu; Flaneur – Benjamin; Chora – Kristeva; Simulacra – Baudrillard; Subaltern – Spivak; Metahistory – Hayden White; Polyphony – Bakhtin; Hegemony – Gramsci
(3) Habitus – Kristeva; Flaneur – Benjamin; Chora – Bourdieu; Simulacra – White; Subaltern – Spivak; Metahistory – Baudrillard; Polyphony – Bakhtin; Hegemony – Gramsci
(4) Habitus – Bourdieu; Flaneur – Gramsci; Chora – Kristeva; Simulacra – Baudrillard; Subaltern – Spivak; Metahistory – White; Polyphony – Bakhtin; Hegemony – Benjamin

11. “Power circulates in all directions…” Who said this? (UGC NET June 2013)

(1) Edward Said
(2) Michel Foucault
(3) Jacques Derrida
(4) Roland Barthes

12. Which two terms are linked to Pierre Bourdieu? (UGC NET Sep 2020)

(A) Habitus
(B) Consciousness
(C) Desire
(D) Distinction

(1) (A) and (C) only
(2) (A) and (D) only
(3) (B) and (D) only
(4) (C) and (D) only

13. Which of these are true of cultural studies? (UGC NET Dec 2021)

(a) Politically engaged
(b) Privileges text over context
(c) Linked to formalism
(d) Studies means of production

(1) (a) and (c) only
(2) (a) and (d) only
(3) (a) and (b) only
(4) (b) and (d) only

14. Who is associated with ‘philosophy of praxis’? (UGC NET Dec 2021)

(1) Antonio Gramsci
(2) Georg Lukacs
(3) Raymond Williams
(4) Stuart Hall

15. Which essays are part of The Dialogic Imagination? (UGC NET Dec 2021)

(a) History of Novelistic Discourse
(b) Discourse in the Novel
(c) Romance and Novel
(d) Chronotope

(1) (a) and (b) only
(2) (a) and (d) only
(3) (b) and (c) only
(4) (b) and (d) only