General Exam: Day 4

Well, it’s over. Thank goodness. Yesterday was a rough day. I literally sat down at 6am and did not do anything else (not even a walk around the block for poor Maizy) until 7pm last night. My only breaks were to grab some snacks from the fridge and let Maizy out in the backyard to go to the bathroom. I was completely exhausted by the fourth day and I think it showed in the response I wrote. The final question was:

Feminist political ecology and ecofeminism have equated gender identities and subjectivities with animals and their treatment in power-laden hierarchies as informed by capitalism and Western enlightenment philosophies about humans and nature. Discuss this research and compare it with research in alternative food geographies that is also concerned with these themes. Describe the changing dynamics of gender, culture, and nature within these research trajectories, and the implications for feminist politics in food geography.

Yeah, there’s a lot in that question, I know. It was very difficult. In any case, it felt good to send off the exam last night and now I just have to continue reading, thinking about these topics, and wait for my oral examination, which happens to be exactly one month from today on December 5th. That exam will last for about 2.5 hours during which my committee will grill me on the topics I wrote about and also probably on some topics I forgot to include. I’ll consider that part of the exam a success if I can make it through the 2.5 hours without weeping.

In the meantime, though, I think I’m going to take a day off from school work and take a long walk with Maizy, maybe bake something and maybe do a little yard work if the weather holds out. It’s leaf raking season and as soon as we rake them up, more leaves come down to cover the nice clean spot we cleared.

Have a good weekend and thanks for hanging there this week while I posted only about the generals!

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