Problématiques

Problématiques for CSPT doctoral candidacy exams

Effective September 2024, the CSPT doctoral candidacy exam will consist of 2 mandatory categories (or parts).

For both categories, the student and their (co-)supervisor will identify 2 problématiques (or 2 sets of related problématiques) from the list below. A problématique not on the list may be proposed with the permission of the CSPT director.

The bibliographies for these lists may be drawn from the former (2015) CSPT reading list, but that list is for guidance only and not compulsory.

Having both "contemporary" and "foundational" texts is encouraged. For more information, see the CSPT doctoral candidacy exam guidelines.

Ontology & technology

ontology
(anti)foundationalism
emerging or speculative ontologies
the fate of Reason
metaphysics
critique of subjectivity
nihilism
technocultural interfaces
theorizing digital media
media, culture and history
technology and modernity
media and technology
critical digital studies
new spatio-temporalities
speed and acceleration
posthuman (technological and biological)

Gender, sexuality, queer

gender
sexuality
race/body/desire/power
gender/class
gender/race
queer futures
queer Indigenous studies
queer & trans-identity
theorizing body in society
gendered bodies
body politic
biopower and biopolitics
feminisms
Indigenous feminism
personal/political
private-public
critical perspectives on gender and sexuality
gender and identity
domination and oppression
domination and resistance
identity politics
cultural studies

Human, humanism, post-humanism, animal

the animal
posthumanism and modernity
post- and trans-humanism
posthuman (technological and biological)
animal-human subjectivity
critique of subjectivity
subjectivity and post-subjectivity
origins and ends
distinctions and merging
limits and boundaries

Critique, ideology, (post) Marxism

hermeneutics
immanence and transcendence
political economy
postcolonial critique
historical and dialectical materialism
feminist critique of political economy
ideological
state apparatus
critiques of capitalism
theorizing crisis
after critique
power, ideology and subaltern
(false) consciousness
power and resistance
knowledge and power
Marxisms
Postmarxism
social revolution
neoliberalism
globalization
cosmopolitanism and globalization
(use and exchange) value
hegemony
capital and the state
anarchism
socialisms
aesthetics and aesthetic politics
negative dialectics
critique of instrumental rationality
destruction of aesthetics
domination and oppression
domination and resistance
materialism and idealism in theorizing language
utopias and utopianism

Ecology, environment, nature

economies and ecologies
nature
nature-culture
cities and civilizations
political ecologies
posthuman and postnatural
critical political economy and political ecology
politics of space
human and animal

Colonialism, Indigeneity, postcolonialism

postcolonial critique
history and histories
postcolonialism
colonialism and neo-colonialism
migration and hybridity
Indigeneity and hybridity
Africanity, negritude, afropolitanism
national liberation
settler/denizen colonialism
Indigenous nationhood and governance
settler colonialism and territorial dispossession of Indigenous peoples
Indigeneity, sovereignty and the state
Indigenous decolonization and resurgence
constitutionalism and Indigenous peoples
Indigenous political theory
Indigenous feminism
Indigenous knowledge
Indigenous legal and political traditions
decolonization
anti-colonial resistance
diaspora
identity politics
violence and nonviolence
exile
Third World, third cinemas and revolutions
restorative justice and reconciliation
knowledge and memory
epistemological difference
domination and oppression
domination and resistance

identity politics
collective action
social movements
mobilization
violence & nonviolence
critique of violence
liberation/emancipation, revolution, restorative justice and reconciliation
recognition
pluralism (value pluralism, legal pluralism, political pluralism)
relations of difference
relations of equivalence
articulation
hegemony
domination and oppression
domination and resistance
deliberation, communication and "the other"
identity, community and difference
empty and floating signifiers
discursive practices
cultural studies

Governmentality, sovereignty

the state
space and power
nationalism and citizenship
sovereignty and state violence
human rights (and genocide)
radical politics and state power
anarchism and direct action
war and political violence
state of exception
homo sacer

New materialisms, bodies, affect

subjectification
new materialisms
affects
bodies
ethics and empathy
subjectivity and language
mediation and materiality
body and space
phenomenology of the body

Language, meaning, representation

memory and meaning
politics of the novel
problem of language and representation
problem of interpretation
trauma and memory
hauntology
spectrology

Problématiques