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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What idea does Gilroy say black consciousness forces us to revise?

2. How does Gilroy say we should look at the history of race in the West?

3. What does Gilroy say modern racial concepts do too much of?

4. What does music do to the genteel image many moderns have of themselves according to Gilroy?

5. How does Gilroy characterize defenders of modernity's attitude toward the African diaspora?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is it odd, in Gilroy's opinion, that debates over modernity have ignored music?

2. What is the problem with a black identity rooted in skin color for Gilroy?

3. What critique does Gilroy make of the concepts that governed race and ethnicity when he wrote The Black Atlantic?

4. How does Gilroy define the hermeneutics of the black Atlantic?

5. What is double consciousness?

6. What role did music play in slaves' lives according to Gilroy?

7. Where does Gilroy say we should look in order to see the reality of black experience?

8. What does Gilroy say most theorists of modernity focus on?

9. What does Gilroy say British audiences expected from Jimi Hendrix?

10. What criticism does Gilroy make of Enlightenment universalist claims?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At the end of The Black Atlantic Paul Gilroy describes the challenges facing Western culture in the future. How is race related to these challenges, and do you think that this broadening of scope is a fitting gesture to close on? Does it cement Gilroy's narrative, or does it step aside from it?

Essay Topic 2

What is the relationship between race and nationality according to Gilroy? What was it originally and what has it become? How has it changed over time? What changed it?

Essay Topic 3

Gilroy uses writers more than anyone else for his evidence of cultural trends regarding race. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using literature for cultural analysis? What does it exclude? What does it capture that couldn't be captured anywhere else?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 775 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample