PhD Qualifying Examinations - Sample Questions

Below you will find examples of questions from previous PhD Qualifying Examinations (also called Comprehensives or “Comps”).

In general, this is how qualifying examination questions are structured:

The Foundation (Breadth). Identify specific theorists, historical eras, or schools of thought from your bibliography.
The Critical Friction (Depth). Identify a conflict, limitation, or "blind spot" within those theories.
The Synthesis (Application). Apply those theories to a modern problem, case study, or pedagogical design.

Part 1: Overall command of the discipline (Major General)

Demonstrate a "broad knowledge of the major field (within Communication Studies and/or Cultural Studies), including its history and development, its major theoretical perspectives and debates."

Historical evolution

Use this template to track how a core concept has shifted over time within the discipline.

Prompt: Trace the scholarly evolution of [Core Concept] from [Era] to the present. Critique how foundational theorists handled this concept differently. How do these historical shifts change how we [study/teach] this concept today?

Past samples:

How has Visual Studies developed over the last 30 years? Does Visual Studies represent an independent academic discipline or an interdisciplinary field? What are the implications of each for the study of Visual Culture?
How has the "archival turn" impacted the ways photographs are thought about in archival theory?
Identify and describe three key influences of communication studies in the formation of science and technology studies.
How does the early development of the field of visual culture elide the importance of materiality?
History, memory, and photography are intricately connected. Discuss the difficulty of analyzing photographs as historical documents and the manner in which theorists have approached the study.
How did the Springtime of People in Europe (1848) shape Eastern European national states, and could we speak about surmounting colonialism in the European periphery (in post-Soviet states)?

Comparative synthesis

Use this template to weigh two competing schools of thought against each other.

Prompt: Define the core tenets of [School of Thought A] and [School of Thought B]. Identify the primary theoretical friction between these two regarding [Subject]. Use this debate to explain [a current cultural phenomenon].

Past samples:

Compare and contrast the ideas and approach of McLuhan, Williams, and Winner regarding technology as an independent factor versus a social construct.
Digital technologies create possibilities for interconnectedness versus deep cultural divides. Develop these positions and state your own position.
McLuhan (1964) argued that through electric technologies human beings have externalized their central nervous systems. Have new digital technologies increased individual anxieties and degenerated social bonds?
The Internet and cellphones spread rapidly, while others fail. Could this phenomenon be explained by characteristics of technology associated with cultural values?
How do different theorists approach the intersection of the material, visual, and textual in fashion?
In a globalized world, the commodification of culture can support the preservation of traditional knowledge while contributing to economic development. At the same time, commodification can be viewed as exploitative, contributing to a loss of cultural authenticity. Discuss the role of cultural preservation policy, identifying how it can create both opportunities and challenges for the community when the choice is made to commodify culture.
How do contemporary thinkers describe dignity, and what is its place in International Human Rights Law?
How do cultural attitudes towards money, trust, and technology influence public acceptance of digital currencies, and what factors contribute to the formation of positive or negative perceptions regarding their utility, reliability, and short-term and long-term viability?

Pedagogical design

Use this template to demonstrate your readiness to teach the "canon" of the field.

Prompt: Identify [number] "must-read" texts that define the boundaries of [Broad Field]. Critique the "canon" by explaining what these texts overlook. Draft a 12-week syllabus outline that bridges these texts with modern scholarship.

Past samples:

If you were to design a survey course focusing on key themes and theorists in critical race theory and gender studies, which theorists would you choose and why?
Design an undergraduate course on Black studies. Provide the syllabus and rationalize your choices.
If you were to design a syllabus on Empires, Nations and Post-Colonial Liberation for the first or second year undergrad students, what topics, areas, readings and traditions would you engage? What would you hope for students to gain from the course?
Design a syllabus for "Taylor Swift: Celebrity in the Digital Age" to illuminate intersections between key arguments in the field.
If you were to design a survey course entitled “The Comic Form,” what texts and theorists would you choose and why?
If you were to construct an undergraduate course on modest fashion, what rationale would you use to synthesize your research material?
Design a survey course on fashion studies or digital content branding. Which theorists and readings would you choose?

Part 2: Specialized research expertise (Major Specific)

Demonstrate an "in-depth and critical understanding of the literature in a student's chosen area of specialization... emphasizing its particular theoretical, historical and/or methodological issues."

Theorists in conversation

Use this template to synthesize two or more specific authors to create a new research insight.

Prompt: Define how [Theorist A] and [Theorist B] conceptualize [Specific Concept]. Critique the limitations of each view when applied to [Your Research Topic]. Synthesize their ideas to propose a new framework.

Past samples:

Define and provide an example of a contemporary Black countervisuality by bringing Mirzoeff's The Right To Look into conversation with Leigh Raiford's Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare.
Contrast Healy’s (2015) use of detail with Geertz’s "thick description." Is it useful to apply Healy's critique to anthropological work?
Discuss Édouard Glissant's archipelagic thinking in relation to other postcolonial works on diaspora and cultural syncretism.
Using Castells, Dyer-Witheford, and Moody, how does technological change result from and affect relations of labour?
Using theories of communication and cultural studies, consider the role of popular culture in the portrayal of social robots.
Explore the ways scholarship has highlighted a turn to affective regulation in postfeminist culture.
Discuss the degree to which post-colonial theory is germane to the contemporary context of Ukraine. Draw on the work of three or four scholars to frame your answer.
Rosemary Coombe defines the governmentalization of culture as a method employed by neoliberal states to manage populations through cultural governance... Explain how the governmentalization of cultural heritage policies utilizes the concept of nationalism to package cultural policy as a public good.
If identity is neither fixed nor individual, how do we reimagine the self as a site of passage? Considering the nature of interstitial being... Waters, Lewis & Arista, Abrams, Nurit Bird, and Tuan all suggest that the self is neither enclosed nor autonomous. How are selves generated instead through crossings, translations, and thresholds?
What if meaning is not something we possess, but something that must be spent? Considering meaning as a kinetic economy, what is a materialist understanding of meaning as energetic and moving?

Practical case studies

Use this template to apply broad theory to a specific historical, political, or social movement.

Prompt: Briefly outline a significant movement related to [your area of research]. Compare how two different theoretical lenses explain its success or failure. What "lessons learned" apply to future movements?

Past samples:

Taking into account cultural, political, and economic considerations, account for the viability of an independent Kashmir.
Using three case studies, discuss technological development in visual culture in Modernity. What are the essential components of the studies of visual culture? And how technical progress has influenced our perception of our surroundings.
Women’s rights were among the overarching tenets of communism in Eastern Europe. How might the legacy of communism play into present-day representations of women in the Ukrainian war, and in what ways does it disrupt the hegemony of hyper-masculinity in the military?
Discuss the historiography of the Kashmir conflict, identifying schools of thought and prospects for resolution.
Discuss how race-centric movements like the "Alt-Right" exist amorphously and yet maintain momentum. What is the function of race and nationhood in sustaining them?
How has the relationship between Islamic Art, institutions, and patrons developed post-9/11? Use an institutional case study.
What are the socio-economic implications of increased digitization and virtualization of money? Are there opportunities for financial inclusion, access to banking services, and money exchange particularly for marginalized and unbanked/underbanked populations?

Part 3: Secondary field / Methodological and technical literacy (Minor)

Focus on a "secondary field of specialization, and/or a specific methodological or professional area."

Methodological corrective

Use this template to demonstrate your understanding of the "blind spots" in research tools.

Prompt: Explain the mechanics of [Method A] and the data it captures. Critique its "blind spots" regarding [Human/Social Element]. Demonstrate how [Method B] acts as a corrective.

Past samples:

How can the multi-modal interactions of digital ethnography remedy shortcomings in traditional ethnographic approaches?
Given the power dynamics embedded in photographic technology, what are the benefits and limitations of photovoice as a participatory and creation-based data collection method?
How might approaches to trauma, delusion, and existential anxiety reframe madness not merely as passive suffering but a form of being that generates meaning under the conditions of constraint? How might we approach excess not as pathology, but as another form of knowledge?
How has research-creation been theorized as a hybrid theory/practice method? Provide case studies that integrate theory and practice.
Describe the “ontological turn” in anthropology, discuss its criticisms, and examine its points of contact with other work.
Explain the makings of the Canadian nation state and its employment of racialization using the texts on your list.

Tool vs. agency

Use this template to evaluate the relationship between technical design and human behavior.

Prompt: Describe the technical design features of [Specific Technology]. Evaluate the debate between "technological determinism" and "human agency" in this context. Analyze a case where users reshaped the tool.

Past samples:

The Proteus Effect suggests behavioral changes in game players via avatars. Explain claims regarding immersive embodiment. What are the issues with these claims?
How can understanding platform affordances (Twitter, TikTok) illuminate how celebrity operates?
“Big Other's” ecosystem and its radical indifference. How does interdependence and interoperability affect collective privacy?
To what extent can national business culture influence the technology adoption life cycle?
What is the 'girl' in girls' studies? How has the field theorized girlhood and visibility in digital culture?

Important considerations

You must finalize your specific bibliography and questions in consultation with your supervisor and committee.