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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the following thinkers argued that people take "no small" delight in witnessing the suffering of others?
(a) Edmund Burke.
(b) Aristotle.
(c) Renee Descartes.
(d) Plato.

2. Which two things does Sontag say seem to go together?
(a) Heartlessness and amnesia.
(b) Trauma and memory.
(c) Death and heartlessness.
(d) Amnesia and trauma.

3. Sontag claims that no one has a right to which of the following?
(a) Bliss.
(b) Sympathy.
(c) Happiness.
(d) Ignorance.

4. Which Dreiser novel does Sontag reference in the final chapter?
(a) "The Crucible."
(b) "Sister of War."
(c) "Death of a Salesman."
(d) "An American Tragedy."

5. Sontag claims that some photographs which are "repulsive" can also ________.
(a) Shock.
(b) Allure.
(c) Impress.
(d) Silence.

6. What is the primary message carried by images of atrocity?
(a) We must change.
(b) Never forget.
(c) This happened.
(d) This is wrong.

7. _______ is a modern development in camera use.
(a) Uglifying.
(b) Complicating.
(c) Beautifying.
(d) Simplifying.

8. Using the example of Ground Zero, Sontag argues that photographs have the power to do which of the following to their subject?
(a) Transform it to something beautiful.
(b) Capture the unseen in it.
(c) Elevate it to something venerable.
(d) Degrade it to something consumable.

9. Which of the following works does Sontag site as containing the first recognition of the human fascination with mutilated bodies?
(a) Homer's "The Iliad."
(b) Virgil's "The Aeneid."
(c) Plato's "The Republic."
(d) Socrates' "Apologia."

10. Sontag argues that there are two extreme positions on a spectrum of war experience which create the same idea that images of war are no longer emotionally-jarring for an audience? Which two positions are they?
(a) Victims and perpetrators of atrocity.
(b) Unexperienced cynics and the war-weary.
(c) Scholars and politicians.
(d) Soldiers and civilians of war-torn regions.

11. Georges Bataille, famous for his studies of the erotic, kept which of the following images on his desk?
(a) A famous pornographic image, taken in late19th century France.
(b) A photograph of the statue of David.
(c) A painting of the bombing of Guernica.
(d) A photograph of the Chinese torture "the death of a hundred cuts".

12. Which of the following produced a documentary about a "deranged" Pacific war veteran who drives the streets of Tokyo speaking against Japanese war crimes?
(a) Larisa Shepitko.
(b) Theodore Dreiser.
(c) Kazuo Hara.
(d) Jeff Wall.

13. Sontag suggests that it is still possible to "feel the pulse of Christian iconography" in much war photography. Which famous work of art does she suggest can be seen in W. Eugene Smith's photograph of the woman in Minamata cradling her child?
(a) Descent from the Cross.
(b) The Pieta.
(c) The Last Supper.
(d) The Passion of Christ.

14. Diorama, tableaux and wax exhibits served which of the following purposes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?
(a) Forms of history-as-display.
(b) Forms of war protest.
(c) Forms of artistic expression.
(d) Forms of entertainment.

15. According to Sontag, Wall's photograph may have been an updated version of which infamous image from the First World War?
(a) Friedrich's "War against War!"
(b) Gance's "J'accuse."
(c) Gardner's "Photographic Sketch Book of the War."
(d) Goya's "Distasters of War."

Short Answer Questions

1. It was generally thought that public awareness was largely guided by which of the following?

2. Sontag claims that compassion requires which of the following in order to remain?

3. In transforming an event or person into something that can be owned, photographs:

4. Discussing the common person's ability to feel sympathy, Sontag argues which of the following?

5. _______ is a classic use for the camera.

(see the answer keys)

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