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

2. How does Gilroy defend Richard Wright against charges of sexism?

3. What theory culminated in the Holocaust?

4. What ideology was Richard Wright ambivalent to according to Gilroy?

5. What does Gilroy say blacks used to unify themselves?

Short Essay Questions

1. What tension did politics create in black culture?

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

3. What are the three modes of thinking, seeing and being which DuBois says are the basis of double consciousness?

4. Describe the role of the concept of tradition in the black Atlantic.

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

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

7. What was DuBois' relation with blackness?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is Gilroy writing about the black experience, or the modern experience? If the modern self is a fragmented self, do all individuals with self-awareness experience the same double-consciousness? How does Gilroy avoid this universalizing argument, which erases blackness as it universalizes aspects of black consciousness.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Where does black cultural legitimacy come from? The academy or the ghetto? Africa or America? Where does Gilroy claim his legitimacy comes from? How does he counter claims that would challenge his legitimacy?

(see the answer keys)

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