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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. _______ is a classic use for the camera.
(a) Beautifying.
(b) Complicating.
(c) Uglifying.
(d) Simplifying.

2. Events enter the collective memory, not by a natural process of remembering but by:
(a) Subconscious selection.
(b) Government propaganda.
(c) Active designation of significance.
(d) Repeated exposure.

3. Which nation's army was represented in Wall's photograph?
(a) United States.
(b) Iraq.
(c) Afghanistan.
(d) Soviet Union.

4. Sontag writes that provocative images may have which of the following effects on viewers?
(a) Provocative images may spur viewers to examine how their own privileges are possible through the suffering of others.
(b) Provocative images of suffering may enable a deep sense of human empathy.
(c) Provocative images of suffering may compel viewers to stop subscribing to newspapers for fear of seeing more disturbing photographs.
(d) Provocative images of suffering may incite humanitarian actions to end exploitative actions.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Sontag cites William Hazlitt's claim that sympathy is no more a part of human nature than is which of the following?

2. Which of the following thinkers argued that people take "no small" delight in witnessing the suffering of others?

3. According to Sontag, the idea that less people are reacting to news of atrocity is probably which of the following?

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. Although images were more prevalent, which of the following was NOT also true?

Short Essay Questions

1. Sontag claims that there is historical evidence to suggest that, despite contemporary belief, war has always been the norm, and peace the exception to that norm. Discuss one of the examples Sontag provided.

2. Sontag proposes that perhaps we place too much value on memory. What does she mean? Why does she posit this?

3. How does Sontag refute claims that photography is somehow inherently more voyeuristic than other forms of observation?

4. Discuss the photograph that Georges Batailles kept on his desk. Why does Sontag discuss this particular photograph?

5. According to Sontag, why is there no museum dedicated to the victims of the slave trade?

6. Why does Sontag say that "it is not necessarily better to be moved?" Discuss the negative aspects of sentimentality.

7. What is unusual about Wall's "Dead Troops Talk (A Vision After an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter 1986)?" Discuss two aspects of the work that separate it from others like it.

8. Sontag claims that there is a difference between finding beauty in artistic representations of war and finding beauty in photographs of war. What is the difference?

9. Sontag asserts that many people become frustrated by their inability to act on the images of suffering they see in the media. What does this frustration often become?

10. Ultimately, Sontag notes that to discuss the desensitization of all television viewers is a provincial move, at best. Why does she argue this?

(see the answer keys)

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