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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. Which factor did NOT divide black subjectivity according to Gilroy's account of Richard Wright's thought?
(a) The demands of his national and racial identifies.
(b) Cultural affiliation.
(c) Family ties.
(d) Citizenship.

2. What did Richard Wright criticize, according to Gilroy?
(a) Corporate industrialism.
(b) Capitalism.
(c) Modernity.
(d) Communism.

3. What does Gilroy say the Afrocentrism movement relies on?
(a) The development of jazz and the blues in America.
(b) A linear period of time interrupted by slavery.
(c) A uniquely black culture in England and the U.S.
(d) An ongoing civilization in Africa.

4. What did DuBois believe in that Richard Wright did not believe in according to Gilroy?
(a) Pan-Africanism.
(b) Returning to black roots.
(c) Essential blackness.
(d) Social perfection.

5. What ideology was Richard Wright ambivalent to according to Gilroy?
(a) The ideology of family.
(b) The ideology of personal emancipation.
(c) The ideology of self-reliance.
(d) The ideology of racial progress.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gilroy say slavery tried to do to tradition?

2. What idea does Gilroy see at work in DuBois' novel Dark Princess?

3. What does Gilroy say about racial traditions?

4. What conflict was taking up too much space in the discussion of race in American literature according to Richard Wright?

5. What does Gilroy say is wrong with contemporary criticism of African-American literature?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did DuBois conclude from his observations of black culture?

2. What does Gilroy have to say about violence in American culture?

3. How does blackness function in DuBois' writing, as Gilroy describes it?

4. How does Gilroy say the discussion he has had in 'Black Atlantic' is likely to help in the twenty-first century, when Western culture faces challenges over resources and sustainability?

5. How does Gilroy characterize the ontological state of slavery?

6. Why do Jews and blacks both resist the comparison of slavery and the Holocaust, as Gilroy describes it?

7. What was James Weldon Johnson's contribution to Gilroy's book?

8. What was Richard Wright's feeling about white culture?

9. What is the relationship between black and Jewish cultures, as Gilroy defines it?

10. Describe the pan-Africanism movement which Richard Wright was part of.

(see the answer keys)

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