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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 does Gilroy say about racial traditions?

2. What does tradition signify in black culture according to Gilroy?

3. How does Gilroy characterize the mood of the black Atlantic?

4. What phenomenon will help us understand race theory in Gilroy's account?

5. How did Richard Wright want to present blacks in his books?

Short Essay Questions

1. What idea was undermined, in Richard Wright's mind, by the violence of modern American culture?

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

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

4. Why was Wright criticized for his characterizations, according to Gilroy?

5. What is the importance of the theme of love and loss in black popular arts, according to Gilroy?

6. What did DuBois argue was the only way to deal with the brutality of modern civilized life in the South?

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

8. What does Gilroy say DuBois reminded blacks?

9. What relation does Gilroy draw between the black Atlantic and the Holocaust?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate your own reading of The Black Atlantic--did you resist it or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

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This section contains 747 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample