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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 5: Interlude--Black Matter(s), including the essays “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature” through “Hard, True, and Lasting”.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison speculates that slaves offered white Americans a sense of what?
(a) Power and authority they had been denied in Europe.
(b) Religious duty to the oppressed.
(c) Being monitored by their social inferiors.
(d) Permissiveness and freedom lacking in the Europe of that time.

2. The art show Morrison discusses in "Harlem on My Mind" had a catalog with a forward written by whom?
(a) The city parks commissioner.
(b) Romare Bearden.
(c) A high-school student.
(d) Toni Morrison.

3. In "The Future of Time," Morrison points to what two forces as responsible for our modern relationship to the future?
(a) Religion and literature.
(b) Women's Liberation and the Civil Rights Movement.
(c) Science and technology.
(d) Secularism and the Cold War.

4. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison comments that race was once used to exclude Blacks, but now that they want their race represented, they are told it does not exist. What function does this detail perform?
(a) It introduces a nostalgic tone that supports Morrison's argument with an element of pathos.
(b) It ironically illustrates the constantly shifting rationale for exclusion.
(c) It is a straw-man version of the counterclaims Morrison is trying to undermine.
(d) It adds a comic note that breaks the tension of a series of upsetting images.

5. In "Black Matter(s)," what does Morrison say she means by "American Africanism"?
(a) The historic systemic oppression of Black Americans.
(b) A white-American construct that defines "American" against a fabrication of Blackness.
(c) A Black literary movement that centers Africanness.
(d) A claim for expansion of the literary canon to incorporate Black writers.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The Habit of Art," Morrison tells the anecdote about Antigone in Haiti to illustrate what point?

2. In "The Individual Artist," what does Morrison find interesting about the feud between literary critics from different schools of criticism?

3. In "Race Matters," Morrison says that tow of the thematic concerns of her work are race and what?

4. According to Morrison's "Black Matter(s)," what is a key factor in national identity?

5. What is it that Morrison says distinguishes globalism from previous movements?

(see the answer key)

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