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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where did Richard Wright develop his ideas about race?
(a) In his world travels.
(b) In the American south.
(c) London.
(d) Chicago.

2. What idea does Gilroy see at work in DuBois' novel Dark Princess?
(a) Exogamy.
(b) Racial heterogeneity.
(c) Inbreeding.
(d) Miscegenation.

3. What does music represent, according to Gilroy?
(a) The essence of black culture.
(b) Pre-discursive elements in black experience.
(c) The conflict between literacy and experience.
(d) The ongoing struggle against modernity.

4. What ontological state does Gilroy say is the heart of many stories in black culture?
(a) The state of being in pain.
(b) The state of displacement from the self.
(c) The state of nostalgia for home.
(d) The state of longing for self-expression and fulfillment.

5. What does tradition signify in black culture according to Gilroy?
(a) A world of opportunities in industrialism capitalism.
(b) A chance to invent tradition going forward.
(c) A history of reclaiming the self from slavery.
(d) A dynamic development of black culture.

6. How does Gilroy characterize the mood of the black Atlantic?
(a) Dry.
(b) Restless.
(c) Passionate.
(d) Condescending.

7. What does Gilroy say Richard Wright was criticized for?
(a) Writing men and women who are victims of the capitalist system.
(b) Hatred of women.
(c) Writing misogynistic male characters.
(d) Failing to write about specifically American concerns.

8. How does Gilroy say blacks are different from Jews?
(a) Blacks were never systematically exterminated.
(b) Blacks do not believe they all come from a common ancestor.
(c) Blacks do not have a homeland to return to.
(d) Blacks do not believe that they have a covenant with their god.

9. What does Gilroy say we should discuss?
(a) The opportunities for understanding brought about by modern communication techniques.
(b) The differences between the Holocaust and slavery.
(c) The dangers of industrial technology.
(d) Common themes between the Holocaust and slavery.

10. What are yearning and mourning associated with in black culture according to Gilroy?
(a) Exile and terror.
(b) Revenge and nostalgia for home.
(c) Anomie and world-weariness.
(d) Disorientation and displacement.

11. What does Gilroy say the Afrocentrism movement relies on?
(a) The development of jazz and the blues in America.
(b) An ongoing civilization in Africa.
(c) A linear period of time interrupted by slavery.
(d) A uniquely black culture in England and the U.S.

12. What term did James Weldon Johnson use for blacks in The Autobiography of An Ex-Coloured Man?
(a) 'Schizophrenic'.
(b) 'King of the kingdom of culture'.
(c) 'Urban-cosmopolitan'.
(d) 'Dual personality'.

13. What does The Souls of Black Folk say to white people according to Gilroy?
(a) It challenges their sense of color-coded civilization.
(b) It proposes that helping the blacks return to Africa is the best path for progress.
(c) It establishes the intellectual credentials of the black races.
(d) It affirms the interrelationship between slavers and slaves.

14. What did DuBois believe in that Richard Wright did not believe in according to Gilroy?
(a) Pan-Africanism.
(b) Essential blackness.
(c) Social perfection.
(d) Returning to black roots.

15. Which adjective does DuBois NOT use for the black experience?
(a) Cosmopolitan.
(b) Individualized.
(c) Communal.
(d) Alienated.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why should blacks openly recognize the debt of their cultural language?

2. Who does Gilroy say DuBois was analyzing in The Souls of Black Folk?

3. What did DuBois say was a central feature of slave culture?

4. What conflict was taking up too much space in the discussion of race in American literature according to Richard Wright?

5. What phenomenon will help us understand race theory in Gilroy's account?

(see the answer keys)

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