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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. How does Gilroy say DuBois arrived at his identity?

2. What feeling does Gilroy say forms the foundation of the black Atlantic?

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

4. What was private violence connected to in Richard Wright's account?

5. What did blacks symbolize for Richard Wright?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why, in Gilroy's opinion, is tradition useful in modern black culture?

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

4. What was DuBois' relation with blackness?

5. Why was Wright criticized for his characterizations, 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 view of the black Atlantic does Paul Gilroy leave us with at the end of the book?

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

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

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 celebrates black music for its ability to avoid the monotone discourse that takes place in other parts of black culture. How does Gilroy himself preserve the sound of other voices and perspectives throughout his book?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

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?

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