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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What city was struck by plague in Oedipus?

2. When was the book You Can Fight for Your Life: Emotional Factors in the Causation of Cancer written?

3. When did Katherine Mansfield write in her Journal that she needed to heal herself before she could be well?

4. When did Kafa write about his TB in a letter to Max Brod in Chapter 5?

5. What drug was one of the first generation of cancer drugs?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Kant say about passion and cancer?

2. How did the contrast between passions change according to Sontag in Chapter 6?

3. Why was cancer thought to be an inapprorpriate disease for a romantic person in contrast to TB?

4. What correlation did doctors see between cancer and complaints?

5. What observations did Galen make regarding women who got breast cancer?

6. What do some researches assert about cancer and a cure?

7. In Death in Venice, how did disease affect Gustav von Achenbach?

8. Why were nineteenth-century cancer patients believed to get cancer, and what advice might they be given?

9. In the nineteenth century, what did disease have to do with the will?

10. How did the ideas connecting TB and emotions change, and how does Sontag relate that change to cancer?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Some scientific studies seemed to link emotion and cancer. How did some scientific studies seem to link emotion and cancer? Why does Sontag believe that any apparent link between cancer and emotion is due to incomplete knowledge about cancer, its causes, and a cure?

Essay Topic 2

Both TB and cancer were depicted as diseases of passion. Why were TB and cancer both depicted as diseases of passion? How was the passion that led to TB and that led to cancer in opposition? How did the myths about TB and cancer depict both diseases as diseases of passion?

Essay Topic 3

Metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis changed over time. How did the metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis change over time? What does etymology reveal about those changes?

(see the answer keys)

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