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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What kinds of expenditure does artistic production require?
(a) Public or patron expenditure.
(b) Patron or market expenditure.
(c) Religious or secular expenditure.
(d) Real or symbolic expenditure.

2. What does Bataille say is the contradiction in Christians worshiping God?
(a) They keep the poor down while their worship exalts them.
(b) They elevate God's power, but claim it for themselves alone.
(c) They only go to church one day a week, but work the other six in profane employments.
(d) They hold people to scripture in private life but not in the marketplace.

3. What circumstances must be in place for the science function to be served, in Bataille's account in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"?
(a) Religion must be referred to in its sense of its goals.
(b) It must serve someone's sense of power.
(c) Science must be the only goal.
(d) Profit must be part of the goal.

4. What was Bataille summing up in his "Propositions"?
(a) His thoughts on sex and perversity in modern life.
(b) His thoughts on Nietzschean metaphysics.
(c) His thoughts on the death of God.
(d) His thoughts on modern culture.

5. How did fascists see Nietzsche?
(a) As a primary ancestor.
(b) As a traitor.
(c) As a martyr.
(d) As a prosecutor.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is classical utility theory inadequate to define, in Bataille's opinion?

2. What does Bataille define as a way to humiliate, defy, or obligate a poorer person as a show of destruction of wealth?

3. What does Bataille say would result from a difference of events in his experience?

4. What is the significance of the obelisk in "The Obelisk"?

5. What does Bataille describe as a symptom of cultural crisis?

Short Essay Questions

1. When does Bataille date the origin of the Popular Front to?

2. Summarize Nicolai Hartmann's interpretation of Hegel.

3. What is Bataille's interpretation of Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption?

4. Judging by "The Critique of the Foundations of the Hegelian Dialectic" and his other essays, what does Bataille see as the value of dialectics?

5. Briefly describe the theory of conspicuous consumption.

6. How does Andre Masson create the tone of the drawings in the book for which Bataille wrote a preface?

7. What pattern for self-discovery does Bataille offer in "The Sacred"?

8. How does Bataille describe the individual in "The College of Sociology"?

9. How does Bataille reconcile the opposition between self and world in "Sacrifices"?

10. What is the importance of the obelisk in "The Obelisk"?

(see the answer keys)

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