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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Morrison's discussion of Huckleberry Finn in "Black Matter(s)" is intended as an illustration of what?
(a) American Africanism.
(b) Historical accuracy in fiction.
(c) The shadow of Puritanism in fiction.
(d) Gothic Romanticism.

2. In "Cinderella's Stepsisters," Morrison's central claim is that women should not do what?
(a) Risk the gains women have made by trying to move forward too quickly.
(b) Oppress other women.
(c) Undermine feminism by being too nurturing.
(d) Participate in corrupt institutions.

3. Morrison compares the Africa of the Western imagination to what legendary monster?
(a) Grendel.
(b) Medusa.
(c) Leviathan.
(d) The Sphinx.

4. Mass migration, according to Morrison, causes what to happen?
(a) The surveillance state.
(b) Expansion of identity to include the "other."
(c) Fear of foreignness.
(d) Failure of the state.

5. What does Morrison say is a key reason for Western projections onto Africa?
(a) The persecution of indigenous Africans.
(b) Western ignorance about Africa.
(c) Africa's poverty.
(d) Missionaries' quest to Christianize Africa.

6. In "Women, Race, and Memory," Morrison uses the phrase "internecine conflict." In context, this phrase means what?
(a) Hostility between the classes.
(b) A conflict that hurts both sides.
(c) A philosophical difference that divides a group.
(d) Conflict between women.

7. Morrison begins "Moral Inhabitants" with a list of what Colonial import and export items?
(a) Slaves.
(b) Indentured servants.
(c) Guns.
(d) Bibles and other religious tracts.

8. In "The Habit of Art," Morrison tells the anecdote about Antigone in Haiti to illustrate what point?
(a) Acting in a play is therapeutic.
(b) Dictators try to crush artistic expression.
(c) Ancient Greek works are still relevant today.
(d) Art has real-world power.

9. In "Race Matters," Morrison creates a metaphorical comparison between "race-specific, race-free" language and what?
(a) Civil rights actions like the Selma bridge march.
(b) A church.
(c) A borderless, safe, outdoor space.
(d) Romantic love.

10. According to Morrison, how does fascism arise?
(a) As a series of small, orderly steps.
(b) By insisting that all people be treated identically.
(c) When minority groups gain power over the majority.
(d) With sudden revolution.

11. In "Literature and Public Life," Morrison says that we live in the age of what?
(a) Spectacle.
(b) Conscience.
(c) Inquiry.
(d) Resignation.

12. "The War Against Error" is a fifteenth and sixteenth century effort to eliminate what kind of error?
(a) Religious beliefs that differed from community norms.
(b) Movements against genocide and ethnic cleansing.
(c) The acceptance of Africans into European society.
(d) Philosophical thinking that questioned the power of the state.

13. According to "Harlem on My Mind," almost 28 years after the "Harlem" exhibit, the Guggenheim museum did what?
(a) Excluded Black artists from a major retrospective exhibition.
(b) Focused on the question of what makes Black art Black.
(c) Devoted an entire exhibition to Romare Bearden.
(d) Mounted an exhibition more concerned with Black politics than art.

14. In "The Future of Time," what does Morrison say it seems like "the future" means to people today?
(a) Nothing at all.
(b) Infinity.
(c) Despair.
(d) 20-40 years from now.

15. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison speculates that slaves offered white Americans a sense of what?
(a) Being monitored by their social inferiors.
(b) Power and authority they had been denied in Europe.
(c) Religious duty to the oppressed.
(d) Permissiveness and freedom lacking in the Europe of that time.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is a key characteristic of globalism, according to Morrison?

2. Morrison's reading of fiction about Africa written by non-African writers reminded her of what part of her childhood?

3. To whom does Morrison address her remarks about the dead of September 11, 2001?

4. "Noblesse oblige" is a philosophy that urged the nobility to do what?

5. In "The Slavebody and the Blackbody," when Morrison suggests that writing about slavery cuts away at the scar tissue the blackbody uses to hide the slavebody, what technique is she using?

(see the answer keys)

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