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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. Sontag claims that Jacques Callot's 1633 painting, "The Miseries and Misfortunes of War" was unprecedented for which of the following reasons?
2. Which was the first war to be "covered" by professional war journalists at the front lines?
3. In its early days, photography was thought to:
4. Sontag suggests that the camera always "kept company with _________".
5. Paraphrasing Woolf, Sontag states that the privileged class fails to respond to images of war with the appropriate pain. She describes this as a:
Short Essay Questions
1. Explain Sontag's objection to the idea that a news broadcasting program can "give you the world." Why did she argue that compressing world news into broadcasted programming is bad?
2. Sontag discussed the captions to Goya's "Los Desastres de la Guerra" (The Disasters of War). Explain the significance of these messages to the viewer. How do these captions affect the impact of the image?
3. Why do images of pain challenge us to look without flinching? According to Sontag, what purpose does this serve?
4. How do captions sway interpretations of images? Discuss one of the examples Sontag provides in Chapter 1.
5. Discuss the controversy surrounding the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002. What was the main conflict?
6. According to Sontag, how are photographs of victims a form of rhetoric? What is their purpose or message? How do they function to convey this message?
7. According to Sontag, how do mass Hollywood productions influence the public's perception of catastrophic or horrific events?
8. Explain the significance of Jacques Callot's 1633 series of etchings titled "Les Miseres et les Malheurs de la Guerra" (The Miseries and Misfortunes of War). Why did Sontag discuss this work?
9. According to Sontag, how does a photograph in the news media differ from a written account? How does the audience change?
10. Sontag identified two types of censorship which affect war photography. Describe both types of censorship. Which is most influential?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Throughout Sontag's argument, gender norms and expectations emerge as contributing factors in the way individuals receive images. How does Sontag treat these gendered expectations? Do you agree with Sontag's assertions on this issue? Why or why not? Discuss the differences in the ways men and women receive photographs of war and atrocity as well as the way publishing companies think about their audiences in terms of gender.
Essay Topic 2
Why might a group of people be more sensitive to images of its members in pain? For instance, why might Americans be more sensitive to images of American citizens in pain? Why, do you think, people are less sensitive to the suffering of "others" outside their own social, cultural, or national grouping?
Essay Topic 3
Sontag asserted that acknowledging the human capacity for unthinkable cruelty is a step toward intellectual and moral maturity. Do you agree? Why or why not? Further, why is intellectual or moral maturity a desirable outcome of war photography? How does this new-found maturity benefit the world? Is this perhaps vital to the production of a functional society? Why or why not?
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This section contains 1,096 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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