Preliminary Exam
History and Gender; Latino/a and Chicano/a Studies
February 2010
Please choose two questions from Part One and one question from Part Two for a total
of three questions. Be sure your essays have a clear line of argument and engage with
both history and historiography, discussing both scholars and scholarly work where
appropriate. As per History Department regulations, the total time for this exam is
seven hours.
Part One – Comparative US/Latin American Gender and History – ANSWER TWO
QUESTIONS
1. To what extent is Joan Scott’s two-part definition of gender, as explained in “Gender
– A Useful Category of Historical Analysis”, universally applicable? Are there other,
more influential definitions and conceptualizations of gender in Latino/a studies?
2.
“…cross-cultural feminist work must be attentive to the micropolitics of context,
subjectivity, and struggle, as well as to the macropolitics of global economic and
political systems and processes.” Does this quote from Chandra Mohanty
(“Feminism Without Borders”, 2003) reflect the current perspectives of prominent
Chicano/a historians, or, rather, have they tended to produce more focused,
localized narratives?
3. How do you differentiate US women of color feminism as an analytic
from Latin American feminism as an analytic?
4. How would you periodize Mexican feminism and why? (This question
relates only to the years your dissertation will cover.)
Part Two – Theory, Praxis and Politics – ANSWER ONE QUESTION
5. You have been asked to give a lecture to a large undergraduate American History
class on the topic, “Gender on the Border,” focusing on the border between the US
and Latin America. What three advance readings would you assign for the class, and
why? What major points would you plan to make during your lecture? What new
ideas and perspectives do you hope the students would learn from your talk?
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6. “U.S.-third world feminists” have provided us important critiques of
identity politics, but these critiques have necessarily engendered an
identity imagined as the basis for potential social movements. In what
ways does U.S. third world feminism negotiate, neglect, embrace, and/or
account for this contradiction?
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PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION IN LATINA/O STUDIES
April 2009
Please answer both questions:
1. How effectively has the field of Latina/o Studies grappled with gender and
sexuality? What conflicts have you seen emerge? How have historians of gender
and sexuality critiqued and/or shaped Latina/o Studies? More specifically, if you
had to teach a class on the subject of gender, sexuality, and Latina/o Studies,
where would you begin, what would you choose to include, and why?
2. Discuss the ways in which the interdisciplinary fields of Latina/o and Chicana/o
studies have contributed to, enhanced, or parted ways with the disciplinary
methods particular to History. Draw from the work of recognizable Chicana/o
and Latina/o historians, as well as practitioners of Latina/o and Chicana/o studies
more broadly, to elaborate your points.