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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. At the time Sontag wrote the book, many felt what which of the following made atrocity photographs immoral?
(a) Abstractness.
(b) Permanence.
(c) Exploitation.
(d) Context.

2. What does Sontag claim as our only connection with the dead?
(a) Images.
(b) Love.
(c) Memory.
(d) Graves.

3. What sentiment concludes the book?
(a) War is inevitable.
(b) The horror of war is unimaginable.
(c) Photographs of atrocities must be endured.
(d) War photography should be banned.

4. Sontag refutes the possibility of a suggestion she made in "On Photography". Which of the following ideas did she refute?
(a) A ban on horrific images.
(b) An ecology of images.
(c) An abating of horrors.
(d) A placation of the public.

5. Discussing the common person's ability to feel sympathy, Sontag argues which of the following?
(a) People will automatically feel sympathy for victims of atrocity.
(b) People will instinctually distance themselves from suffering.
(c) People will do anything to keep from being moved by what they see.
(d) People will naturally feel empathy, but will quickly distance themselves because society has programmed them to avoid involvement.

6. The West had a long tradition of viewing war as which of the following?
(a) Spectacle.
(b) Necessary.
(c) Honorable.
(d) Atrocity.

7. According to Sontag, a person who fails to recognize that people are capable of committing atrocities has failed to achieve which of the following?
(a) Emotional security.
(b) Realistic perspective.
(c) Psychological or moral adulthood.
(d) Intellectual development.

8. Sontag claims that compassion requires which of the following in order to remain?
(a) Action.
(b) Reason.
(c) Belief.
(d) Evidence.

9. According to Sontag, the idea that less people are reacting to news of atrocity is probably which of the following?
(a) Somewhat true.
(b) Painfully true.
(c) Not true.
(d) Regrettably true.

10. Sontag suggests that to make peace is to do which of the following?
(a) Forget.
(b) Remember.
(c) Understand.
(d) Forgive.

11. 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) Socrates' "Apologia."
(c) Virgil's "The Aeneid."
(d) Plato's "The Republic."

12. Modern society, Sontag argues, is a "society of _______".
(a) Spectacle.
(b) Shock.
(c) Sheep.
(d) Sympathy.

13. Sontag begins Chapter 9 with which of the following assertions?
(a) Anti-war imagery is futile.
(b) Images of war do little to help us understand the circumstances of war.
(c) Merely naming an atrocity does nothing to remedy the situation or save its victims.
(d) Designating an atrocity merely labels the victims..

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

15. Sebastiao Salgado's work called "Migrations: Humanity in Transition" was often criticized as being:
(a) "Exploitative."
(b) "Melodramatic."
(c) "Generalizing."
(d) "Cinematic."

Short Answer Questions

1. Georges Bataille, famous for his studies of the erotic, kept which of the following images on his desk?

2. Sontag cites the Japanese narrative "Chushingura" in which the protagonist stops to appreciate the beauty of cherry blossoms one last time before committing ritual suicide as an example of which kind of shocking art?

3. Which sense did the ancient Greeks consider superior?

4. Recounting a conversation with a Sarajevan woman, Sontag claims that when people are safe, they will feel which of the following toward atrocities committed abroad?

5. Diorama, tableaux and wax exhibits served which of the following purposes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

(see the answer keys)

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