17 May 2025

100 Important MCQs on Cultural Studies in English Literature

Check Important Objective Type English Literature Multiple Choice Question Answers on Cultural Studies and its major areas. These solved questions answers on English Literature Cultural Studies section of English Literature Objective type question answers (MCQ) are very useful as English Literature Study Material for UGC NET/JRF/STET, TET, and other written examinations (UGC NET English Paper-II & HPSC Assistant Professor English Screening Exam) based on objective type multiple choice questions.
image: English Literature Question Answers (MCQ) on Cultural Studies @ TeachMatters
(Last Updated: 17.05.2025). Learn English Literature Cultural Studies through these multiple choice objective question answers which are important for the students of English Literature as well as for the candidates who are going to participate in competitive exams based on English Literature General Questions.

 100 Multiple Choice Question Answers on Cultural Studies - English Literature 


Note: Most of these multiple-choice questions are based on the following writers/authors which cover Unit-VII: Cultural Studies of UGC NET English as well as HPSC Assistant Professor English Recruitment Test -

  • Raymond Williams
  • Richard Hoggart
  • Roland Barthes
  • Michel Foucault
  • Stuart Hall
  • Fredric Jameson
  • Edward Said
  • Homi K. Bhabha
  • Stephen Greenblatt

 100 English Literature Cultural Studies MCQs 


1. Who coined the term “structure of feeling”?
A) Richard Hoggart
B) Raymond Williams
C) Stuart Hall
D) Edward Said
Answer: B) Raymond Williams
Explanation: Williams introduced “structure of feeling” to describe the lived experiences and emotional values that shape a particular era, not yet formalized into ideology.


2. The Uses of Literacy is a seminal work by:
A) Stuart Hall
B) Raymond Williams
C) Richard Hoggart
D) Roland Barthes
Answer: C) Richard Hoggart
Explanation: This 1957 work examined working-class culture and critiqued the influence of mass media on traditional values.


3. Roland Barthes' Mythologies focuses on:
A) Historical myths
B) Religious mythology
C) Popular culture and semiotics
D) National identity
Answer: C) Popular culture and semiotics
Explanation: Barthes analyzed everyday objects and media as myths shaped by hidden ideological messages.


4. Who developed the “encoding/decoding” model in media theory?
A) Richard Hoggart
B) Roland Barthes
C) Stuart Hall
D) Fredric Jameson
Answer: C) Stuart Hall
Explanation: Hall proposed that media texts are encoded by producers and decoded by audiences, allowing for negotiated or oppositional readings.


5. Michel Foucault is best known for his analysis of:
A) Marxist economics
B) Mythic archetypes
C) Power and discourse
D) Global capitalism
Answer: C) Power and discourse
Explanation: Foucault explored how discourse creates and maintains power structures, especially in institutions like prisons, schools, and clinics.


6. Which concept is closely associated with Fredric Jameson?
A) Hybrid identity
B) Cultural capital
C) Postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism
D) Interpellation
Answer: C) Postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism
Explanation: Jameson analyzed postmodernism as a cultural condition influenced by late capitalist economics and fragmented identity.


7. The concept of “Hybridity” in postcolonial theory is attributed to:
A) Edward Said
B) Michel Foucault
C) Homi K. Bhabha
D) Stuart Hall
Answer: C) Homi K. Bhabha
Explanation: Bhabha’s hybridity describes the cultural fusion that emerges from colonial encounters, disrupting fixed identities.


8. Who is credited with founding New Historicism?
A) Fredric Jameson
B) Edward Said
C) Stephen Greenblatt
D) Raymond Williams
Answer: C) Stephen Greenblatt
Explanation: Greenblatt emphasized the interconnectedness of literature, history, and culture, initiating the New Historicist approach.


9. Edward Said’s Orientalism critiques:
A) American imperialism
B) Romantic literature
C) Western representations of the East
D) Feminist discourse
Answer: C) Western representations of the East
Explanation: Said argued that the West constructed the East as exotic and inferior to justify colonial domination.


10. “Culture is ordinary” is a concept from:
A) Edward Said
B) Roland Barthes
C) Raymond Williams
D) Michel Foucault
Answer: C) Raymond Williams
Explanation: Williams asserted that culture includes both high art and everyday life, challenging elitist views.


11. Who coined the term “cultural materialism”?
A) Stuart Hall
B) Raymond Williams
C) Stephen Greenblatt
D) Fredric Jameson
Answer: B) Raymond Williams
Explanation: Cultural materialism links literature and cultural practices to socio-economic structures.


12. The concept of “power/knowledge” is central to the work of:
A) Stuart Hall
B) Michel Foucault
C) Homi Bhabha
D) Richard Hoggart
Answer: B) Michel Foucault
Explanation: Foucault argued that knowledge and power are interdependent and used to regulate behavior.


13. “Third Space” is a theory proposed by:
A) Edward Said
B) Fredric Jameson
C) Homi K. Bhabha
D) Stuart Hall
Answer: C) Homi K. Bhabha
Explanation: The “Third Space” is a hybrid cultural realm where meanings are negotiated and transformed.


14. Stuart Hall led which influential institution?
A) Sorbonne
B) Yale School of Theory
C) Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
D) École Normale Supérieure
Answer: C) Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
Explanation: Located at the University of Birmingham, it became the hub for Cultural Studies.


15. Fredric Jameson viewed postmodernism as:
A) A rejection of ideology
B) A nostalgic return to realism
C) A symptom of capitalist commodification
D) A form of political liberation
Answer: C) A symptom of capitalist commodification
Explanation: He critiqued postmodern art and literature as depthless, commodified, and historically detached.


16. Who wrote The Death of the Author?
A) Foucault
B) Greenblatt
C) Barthes
D) Hall
Answer: C) Barthes
Explanation: Barthes questioned the authority of the author, emphasizing the reader’s role in creating meaning.


17. Foucault’s idea of “panopticism” is based on:
A) Democratic institutions
B) Religious authority
C) Constant surveillance
D) Classical philosophy
Answer: C) Constant surveillance
Explanation: Based on Bentham’s Panopticon, it illustrates how modern institutions discipline individuals.


18. What is the focus of New Historicism?
A) Form over content
B) Textual isolation
C) Contextual analysis of texts and power structures
D) Universal humanism
Answer: C) Contextual analysis of texts and power structures
Explanation: It studies literary texts in their historical and political contexts.


19. What does Edward Said’s “contrapuntal reading” encourage?
A) A musical interpretation of literature
B) Linear reading of colonial texts
C) Reading from both colonizer and colonized perspectives
D) Ignoring cultural context
Answer: C) Reading from both colonizer and colonized perspectives
Explanation: Said calls for analyzing the complexities and interactions in colonial narratives.


20. Which thinker is least associated with postcolonial studies?
A) Edward Said
B) Homi Bhabha
C) Stuart Hall
D) Stephen Greenblatt
Answer: D) Stephen Greenblatt
Explanation: Greenblatt is known for New Historicism, while the others contribute significantly to postcolonial thought.


21. In semiotics, Barthes described myth as:
A) Truth
B) Second-order signification
C) Fantasy
D) Scientific fact
Answer: B) Second-order signification
Explanation: Myths are cultural signs layered with ideological meaning beyond literal interpretation.


22. Renaissance Self-Fashioning is written by:
A) Said
B) Greenblatt
C) Williams
D) Barthes
Answer: B) Greenblatt
Explanation: The book examines how individuals in Renaissance England constructed their public identities.


23. Stuart Hall’s concept of “articulation” refers to:
A) Grammar use
B) Cultural connection and combination
C) Physical gestures
D) Visual imagery
Answer: B) Cultural connection and combination
Explanation: It describes how elements of culture come together in specific social contexts.


24. Which is NOT a work by Fredric Jameson?
A) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
B) The Political Unconscious
C) Mythologies
D) Valences of the Dialectic
Answer: C) Mythologies
Explanation: Mythologies is by Roland Barthes.


25. Who introduced the idea of “self-fashioning”?
A) Barthes
B) Greenblatt
C) Foucault
D) Bhabha
Answer: B) Greenblatt
Explanation: He explored how individuals shaped their identities to meet cultural expectations.


26. Cultural Studies as a discipline began in:
A) France
B) Germany
C) United Kingdom
D) United States
Answer: C) United Kingdom
Explanation: It originated at the University of Birmingham with Hoggart and Williams.


27. “Late capitalism” as a cultural condition is theorized by:
A) Foucault
B) Jameson
C) Hall
D) Said
Answer: B) Jameson
Explanation: He uses this term to describe the economic and cultural shifts of the postmodern era.


28. The Location of Culture is a key text by:
A) Edward Said
B) Homi Bhabha
C) Raymond Williams
D) Fredric Jameson
Answer: B) Homi Bhabha
Explanation: This book introduces concepts like mimicry, hybridity, and ambivalence.


29. Discipline and Punish (1975) focuses on:
A) Religious law
B) Colonial education
C) The history of surveillance and punishment
D) Socialist movements
Answer: C) The history of surveillance and punishment
Explanation: Foucault traces how modern societies control behavior through discipline.


30. Raymond Williams defined culture as:
A) Elite art forms
B) Mass entertainment
C) A whole way of life
D) Political ideology
Answer: C) A whole way of life
Explanation: He emphasized both intellectual and everyday aspects of culture.


31. The CCCS was founded in:
A) 1957
B) 1964
C) 1971
D) 1980
Answer: B) 1964
Explanation: The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was established by Hoggart.


32. Barthes distinguished between:
A) Text and context
B) Readerly and writerly texts
C) Original and fake culture
D) History and fiction
Answer: B) Readerly and writerly texts
Explanation: Readerly texts are passive; writerly texts invite interpretation.


33. Stuart Hall often focused on:
A) Romantic literature
B) Economic theory
C) Race, media, and identity
D) Pre-modern philosophy
Answer: C) Race, media, and identity
Explanation: Hall explored how culture and media shape racial identities and ideologies.


34. Stephen Greenblatt argued history is:
A) Objective fact
B) A social construct
C) Irrelevant
D) Divine truth
Answer: B) A social construct
Explanation: In New Historicism, history is interpreted through cultural narratives and texts.


35. Semiotics deals with:
A) Class struggle
B) Meaning through signs
C) Religious symbolism
D) Economic policies
Answer: B) Meaning through signs
Explanation: Semiotics studies how signs (words, images, etc.) create meaning.


36. Jameson’s literary theory is rooted in:
A) Feminism
B) Marxism
C) Psychoanalysis
D) Formalism
Answer: B) Marxism
Explanation: His work critiques cultural production under capitalist structures.


37. Orientalism critiques:
A) Asian literature
B) Eurocentric representation of the East
C) American cinema
D) Indian philosophy
Answer: B) Eurocentric representation of the East
Explanation: Said highlights how the West stereotyped the East to legitimize colonialism.


38. Bhabha’s concept of “mimicry” implies:
A) Cultural erasure
B) Parody
C) Partial colonial imitation
D) Historical forgetting
Answer: C) Partial colonial imitation
Explanation: Mimicry both mimics and mocks colonial authority, creating ambivalence.


39. Contrapuntal reading emphasizes:
A) Western dominance
B) Historical purity
C) Dual perspectives in colonial literature
D) Authorial intent
Answer: C) Dual perspectives in colonial literature
Explanation: It reads literature in light of both imperial and oppressed voices.


40. Stephen Greenblatt contributed to:
A) Structuralism
B) Psychoanalysis
C) New Historicism
D) Phenomenology
Answer: C) New Historicism
Explanation: Greenblatt connected literature with its cultural and historical contexts.


41. Raymond Williams believed that culture was:
A) A fixed concept
B) Always imposed from above
C) Historically evolving and dynamic
D) Irrelevant to politics
Answer: C) Historically evolving and dynamic
Explanation: Williams emphasized that culture evolves in response to changing material conditions and social relations.


42. Richard Hoggart’s work often focused on:
A) American consumerism
B) The preservation of working-class values
C) Eastern philosophy
D) Environmental justice
Answer: B) The preservation of working-class values
Explanation: Hoggart critiqued how mass media diluted authentic working-class culture.


43. Barthes viewed advertisements as:
A) Economically neutral
B) Political propaganda
C) Cultural myths
D) Objective statements
Answer: C) Cultural myths
Explanation: Barthes saw ads as texts embedded with ideological messages that reflect dominant values.


44. Foucault’s “archeology of knowledge” refers to:
A) Classical ruins
B) Digging into unconscious motives
C) Analyzing the historical layers of discourse
D) Studying DNA
Answer: C) Analyzing the historical layers of discourse
Explanation: It’s a method to understand how systems of knowledge develop over time.


45. Stuart Hall described identity as:
A) Fixed and biological
B) Always rooted in race
C) Fluid and constructed
D) Unchangeable
Answer: C) Fluid and constructed
Explanation: Hall argued that identity is shaped by history, culture, and discourse.


46. Jameson described “pastiche” as a feature of:
A) Modernism
B) Realism
C) Postmodernism
D) Naturalism
Answer: C) Postmodernism
Explanation: He saw pastiche as imitation without parody, reflecting the loss of historical depth.


47. Homi Bhabha’s notion of “ambivalence” suggests:
A) Clear cultural oppositions
B) Conflicted colonial relationships
C) Harmony in multiculturalism
D) Stability in identity
Answer: B) Conflicted colonial relationships
Explanation: Colonizer and colonized are entangled in unstable, contradictory dynamics.


48. Greenblatt’s Marvelous Possessions explores:
A) Shakespeare’s theology
B) Narratives of European exploration
C) The rise of capitalism
D) Ancient Greek drama
Answer: B) Narratives of European exploration
Explanation: It examines how early modern Europe justified conquest through literature.


49. Which thinker emphasized “textuality” in understanding culture?
A) Barthes
B) Hall
C) Hoggart
D) Jameson
Answer: A) Barthes
Explanation: He viewed culture as composed of texts that can be interpreted through semiotics.


50. Foucault’s concept of “bio-power” refers to:
A) Natural forces
B) Literary criticism
C) Control of populations through medical and social institutions
D) Mythical storytelling
Answer: C) Control of populations through medical and social institutions
Explanation: Bio-power regulates life through policies on health, reproduction, etc.


51. Williams saw literature as:
A) Separate from politics
B) An elite pursuit
C) Interwoven with cultural and material practices
D) Anti-intellectual
Answer: C) Interwoven with cultural and material practices
Explanation: For Williams, literature reflected and contributed to social change.


52. Hoggart’s work led to the development of:
A) Deconstruction
B) Cultural Studies
C) Marxist theology
D) Ecocriticism
Answer: B) Cultural Studies
Explanation: His attention to working-class culture laid foundational groundwork.


53. Which thinker is known for The Political Unconscious?
A) Williams
B) Barthes
C) Jameson
D) Hall
Answer: C) Jameson
Explanation: This work argues that literature is always political and ideological.


54. “Discursive formations” is a term introduced by:
A) Jameson
B) Foucault
C) Barthes
D) Hall
Answer: B) Foucault
Explanation: It refers to the structures of discourse that govern knowledge.


55. Barthes’ idea of “readerly text” suggests:
A) Easy interpretation
B) Active meaning creation
C) Subversion of norms
D) Irony and satire
Answer: A) Easy interpretation
Explanation: Readerly texts offer a passive reading experience, unlike writerly texts.


56. Stuart Hall emphasized media as:
A) Neutral transmitters
B) Reflective of dominant ideologies
C) Irrelevant to culture
D) Solely entertainment
Answer: B) Reflective of dominant ideologies
Explanation: Media shapes public opinion through ideological framing.


57. Greenblatt’s New Historicism argues literature should be studied:
A) In isolation
B) Only for aesthetics
C) In historical and cultural context
D) Using only psychoanalysis
Answer: C) In historical and cultural context
Explanation: It emphasizes the reciprocal influence between texts and the time they were produced.


58. Homi Bhabha’s concept of mimicry is often:
A) Empowering
B) Subversive
C) Clarifying
D) Nationalistic
Answer: B) Subversive
Explanation: Mimicry mocks the colonizer and undermines colonial authority.


59. “Interpellation” is a term from:
A) Jameson
B) Foucault
C) Althusser
D) Hall
Answer: C) Althusser
Explanation: It describes how individuals are “hailed” into ideological roles by institutions.


60. Which thinker popularized the concept of “hegemony” in cultural analysis?
A) Gramsci
B) Williams
C) Bhabha
D) Barthes
Answer: A) Gramsci
Explanation: He theorized how dominant groups maintain control through consent, not force.


61. Raymond Williams saw language as:
A) A static system
B) Purely personal
C) Social and evolving
D) Objective and neutral
Answer: C) Social and evolving
Explanation: Language reflects and shapes historical and social change.


62. Edward Said viewed “Orientalism” as:
A) A literary genre
B) A travelogue
C) A mode of domination
D) A religious philosophy
Answer: C) A mode of domination
Explanation: Orientalism constructed the East to legitimize Western control.


63. Fredric Jameson linked nostalgia in postmodern culture to:
A) Revolutionary politics
B) A loss of historical consciousness
C) Increased literacy
D) Literary realism
Answer: B) A loss of historical consciousness
Explanation: He argued that postmodern art recycles the past without critical engagement.


64. The “subaltern” refers to:
A) Colonial oppressors
B) Educated elites
C) Marginalized or oppressed groups
D) Ruling classes
Answer: C) Marginalized or oppressed groups
Explanation: The term, used by Spivak and others, critiques the voicelessness of the colonized.


65. Cultural Studies often focuses on:
A) Textual formalism
B) Everyday practices and media
C) Religious dogma
D) Mathematical models
Answer: B) Everyday practices and media
Explanation: It analyzes how culture is produced and consumed in everyday life.


66. Foucault studied madness to:
A) Promote psychiatry
B) Explore how societies define normality
C) Support religious healing
D) Deny institutional power
Answer: B) Explore how societies define normality
Explanation: In Madness and Civilization, he historicizes how madness was constructed.


67. New Historicism challenges the idea of:
A) Authorial intention
B) Political context
C) Ideological critique
D) Cultural relativism
Answer: A) Authorial intention
Explanation: Greenblatt’s method sees meaning as emerging from context, not individual genius.


68. Cultural hybridity involves:
A) Clear cultural boundaries
B) Pure identities
C) Mixed and evolving identities
D) Uniformity
Answer: C) Mixed and evolving identities
Explanation: Bhabha’s theory addresses how identities are shaped by cross-cultural exchange.


69. Which thinker critiques the commodification of art?
A) Williams
B) Foucault
C) Jameson
D) Hall
Answer: C) Jameson
Explanation: He sees postmodern culture as producing superficial “commodities.”


70. In Mythologies, Barthes analyzes:
A) Medieval texts
B) Cultural artifacts like wrestling and wine
C) Religious doctrine
D) Musical notation
Answer: B) Cultural artifacts like wrestling and wine
Explanation: He uses them to show how everyday culture encodes ideology.


71. “Power is everywhere” is a view of:
a) Althusser
b) Marx
c) Foucault
d) Hall
Answer: c) Foucault
Explanation: He believed power is diffused throughout social relationships.


72. Postcolonial theory interrogates:
a) Traditional Marxism
b) Power dynamics of colonialism and its aftermath
c) Scientific methods
d) Pure aesthetics
Answer: b) Power dynamics of colonialism and its aftermath
Explanation: It analyzes literature and culture through the lens of colonial power structures.


73. Cultural Studies sees ideology as:
a) Static truth
b) A false consciousness
c) A set of contested meanings
d) Pure reason
Answer: c) A set of contested meanings
Explanation: It examines how ideologies compete and evolve in social discourse.


74. Said’s work contributed to:
a) Structuralism
b) Postcolonialism
c) Behaviorism
d) Romanticism
Answer: b) Postcolonialism
Explanation: His critique of Western representations laid the groundwork for postcolonial theory.


75. Greenblatt viewed literature as a site for:
a) Passive consumption
b) Ideological reinforcement
c) Cultural negotiation
d) Aesthetic escape
Answer: c) Cultural negotiation
Explanation: Literature reflects and shapes historical and cultural power relations.


76. According to Hall, race is:
a) A scientific fact
b) Socially constructed
c) Genetic truth
d) Irrelevant to identity
Answer: b) Socially constructed
Explanation: He emphasized the cultural dimensions of race and its representation.


77. The idea of “metanarratives” was critiqued by:
a) Barthes
b) Foucault
c) Lyotard
d) Jameson
Answer: c) Lyotard
Explanation: He argued postmodernism is skeptical of grand, universal explanations.


78. Barthes emphasized that texts are:
a) Closed and definitive
b) Singular in meaning
c) Open to multiple interpretations
d) Always visual
Answer: c) Open to multiple interpretations
Explanation: He promoted the “death of the author” and the plurality of meaning.


79. Fredric Jameson connects art to:
a) Autonomous creativity
b) Ideological critique and political economy
c) Romantic emotion
d) Classical formalism
Answer: b) Ideological critique and political economy
Explanation: Art is not isolated but shaped by historical and economic forces.


80. Bhabha’s “Third Space” undermines:
a) Historical realism
b) Binary oppositions
c) Modern technology
d) Linguistic theory
Answer: b) Binary oppositions
Explanation: It opens a space for cultural negotiation beyond colonizer/colonized dualities.


81. According to Raymond Williams, “structure of feeling” refers to:
a) Emotional therapy
b) Static ideology
c) Lived experiences and emergent cultural values
d) Universal religious emotion
Answer: c) Lived experiences and emergent cultural values
Explanation: Williams used this term to describe shared values and meanings in a particular historical moment that are not yet fully articulated.


82. Richard Hoggart criticized mass culture for:
a) Promoting high literature
b) Encouraging political literacy
c) Eroding authentic working-class traditions
d) Supporting artistic innovation
Answer: c) Eroding authentic working-class traditions
Explanation: In The Uses of Literacy, Hoggart highlighted how commercial culture displaced older, communal forms of life.


83. Barthes' "Death of the Author" essay argues:
a) Writers are divine creators
b) Readers should be passive
c) Meaning originates with the reader, not the author
d) Biography determines textual meaning
Answer: c) Meaning originates with the reader, not the author
Explanation: Barthes argued that interpretation is independent of authorial intention.


84. Foucault’s analysis of prisons in Discipline and Punish shows:
a) They are obsolete
b) They reflect architectural beauty
c) They are instruments of modern power
d) They promote freedom
Answer: c) They are instruments of modern power
Explanation: Prisons illustrate how modern society disciplines bodies through surveillance and normalization.


85. Stuart Hall’s model of encoding/decoding emphasizes:
a) Fixed meanings in media
b) Reader’s passive reception
c) Active interpretation and negotiation by audiences
d) The role of the unconscious
Answer: c) Active interpretation and negotiation by audiences
Explanation: Hall proposed that audiences could accept, negotiate, or oppose media messages.


86. Fredric Jameson argues that postmodernism:
a) Is a return to realism
b) Deepens historical consciousness
c) Represents the cultural logic of late capitalism
d) Encourages radical politics
Answer: c) Represents the cultural logic of late capitalism
Explanation: He claims postmodern culture is shaped by commodification and a loss of historical depth.


87. Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism explores:
a) Religion’s role in empire
b) Literary texts' complicity in colonial discourse
c) Travel writing
d) Psychoanalytic theory
Answer: b) Literary texts' complicity in colonial discourse
Explanation: Said shows how canonical Western literature often naturalized imperial domination.


88. Homi Bhabha's “Third Space” allows:
a) Fixed identity
b) Cultural purity
c) Hybridity and negotiation
d) Historical stasis
Answer: c) Hybridity and negotiation
Explanation: This space enables identities to form beyond colonizer/colonized binaries.


89. Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning focuses on:
a) Modern politics
b) Medieval theology
c) How Renaissance individuals constructed identity through discourse
d) Postcolonial hybridity
Answer: c) How Renaissance individuals constructed identity through discourse
Explanation: Greenblatt examines how subjects fashioned themselves within cultural constraints.


90. Raymond Williams emphasized the importance of:
a) Technological determinism
b) High art only
c) Cultural materialism
d) Psychoanalysis
Answer: c) Cultural materialism
Explanation: This approach relates culture to its material and economic conditions of production.


91. Roland Barthes classified myths as:
a) Primitive stories
b) False narratives of tribal societies
c) Ideologically loaded modern narratives
d) Historical facts
Answer: c) Ideologically loaded modern narratives
Explanation: In Mythologies, Barthes examined how even modern cultural artifacts carry mythic, ideological meaning.


92. Michel Foucault saw history as:
a) Linear and progressive
b) Objective truth
c) A series of discontinuities and power shifts
d) Controlled by natural law
Answer: c) A series of discontinuities and power shifts
Explanation: Foucault challenged traditional historical narratives by emphasizing ruptures and the role of power.


93. Stuart Hall described popular culture as:
a) Inferior to elite culture
b) Static and apolitical
c) A site of ideological struggle
d) Morally corrupt
Answer: c) A site of ideological struggle
Explanation: Popular culture, for Hall, is where meanings are contested between dominant and resistant forces.


94. Fredric Jameson’s concept of “depthlessness” refers to:
a) Complexity of modern novels
b) Surface-level aesthetic in postmodern culture
c) Psychological realism
d) Religious dogma
Answer: b) Surface-level aesthetic in postmodern culture
Explanation: He critiques postmodern texts for lacking historical or emotional depth.


95. Edward Said critiqued museums for:
a) Promoting cultural exchange
b) Being educational
c) Displaying colonial control over artifacts
d) Preserving indigenous voices
Answer: c) Displaying colonial control over artifacts
Explanation: He saw museums as spaces where colonized cultures are exoticized and controlled.


96. Bhabha’s notion of “slippage” refers to:
a) Economic recession
b) Errors in literary translation
c) Unstable meaning in colonial discourse
d) Dream analysis
Answer: c) Unstable meaning in colonial discourse
Explanation: Bhabha shows that colonial authority is undermined by the ambivalence and contradictions in its own discourse.


97. Greenblatt emphasized the idea of:
a) Poetic autonomy
b) Literature as a closed system
c) Literature’s embeddedness in power relations
d) Scientific neutrality
Answer: c) Literature’s embeddedness in power relations
Explanation: New Historicism asserts that literary texts participate in and reflect historical power structures.


98. Raymond Williams argued that dominant culture:
a) Is rarely challenged
b) Is isolated from society
c) Coexists with residual and emergent cultures
d) Cannot be studied
Answer: c) Coexists with residual and emergent cultures
Explanation: Williams theorized that dominant cultural forms are always interacting with older (residual) and new (emergent) elements.


99. Foucault linked knowledge and power by arguing that:
a) Knowledge is neutral
b) Power only exists in governments
c) Knowledge systems create and enforce power
d) Education is always liberating
Answer: c) Knowledge systems create and enforce power
Explanation: Foucault asserted that knowledge and power are interdependent, shaping societal norms.


100. Roland Barthes’ concept of “writerly text”:
a) Demands active reader participation
b) Reinforces dominant ideologies
c) Is always journalistic
d) Is clear and unambiguous
Answer: a) Demands active reader participation
Explanation: A “writerly” text invites the reader to co-create meaning rather than passively consume it.


>> 100 Important MCQs on Literary Criticism in English Literature >>

<< 100 Important MCQs on Non-Fiction in English Literature <<

<< 100 Important MCQs on Fiction in English Literature <<

<< 100 Important MCQs on Drama in English Literature <<

<< 100 Important MCQs on Poetry in English Literature <<

>> Important One-liner Questions on Cultural Studies in English Literature >>

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