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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Race Matters," Morrison compares race to what?
(a) A ladder.
(b) A set of clothing.
(c) A jailer.
(d) A map.

2. According to "Harlem on My Mind," why did the 1969 exhibit by the same name fail?
(a) Critics did not understand the cultural aesthetics the exhibit represented.
(b) The exhibit was too ambitious and tried to incorporate too many different kinds of art.
(c) New York was not ready for Black art in 1969, and attendance was very low.
(d) It contained racist materials and did not include much art by African American artists.

3. What is it that Morrison says distinguishes globalism from previous movements?
(a) The way it distributes wealth.
(b) Changes in political alliances.
(c) Its speed.
(d) Its documentation in literature.

4. According to Morrison's "Black Matter(s)," the slave population became the focus of what fundamental feeling of the colonists?
(a) The "Romantic yearning for freedom."
(b) The "Pilgrim's awe and piety."
(c) The "immigrant's hope."
(d) The "outcast's terror."

5. Store displays arranged to look like the interiors of houses and the interiors of houses arranged to look like store displays is an example Morrison gives of which aspect of globalism?
(a) Its division of people into "center" and "margin."
(b) The boundless creation of wealth.
(c) The erasure of the line between public and private.
(d) Corporate control of formerly public spaces.

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

7. The ending of The Radiance of the King, according to Morrison, indicates that Clarence has undergone what kind of transformation?
(a) He learns to fear becoming like native Africans.
(b) He opens himself to the African gaze.
(c) He is now worthy of being a king.
(d) He fully inhabits Western ideals of masculinity.

8. In "Women, Race, and Memory," Morrison relates an anecdote about which historical figure?
(a) Harriet Tubman.
(b) Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
(c) Sojourner Truth.
(d) Mary Shelly.

9. In "Race Matters," Morrison says that when she was younger she found something in writing that she could not find in life itself--what was it?
(a) Immortality.
(b) Justice.
(c) Love.
(d) Sovereignty.

10. In "Black Matter(s)," what aspect of American slavery does Morrison claim makes its impact so long-lasting in American culture?
(a) The religion of slave-owners.
(b) The breakup of slave families.
(c) Laws against teaching slaves to read and write.
(d) The skin color of the slaves.

11. "The War Against Error" is a fifteenth and sixteenth century effort to eliminate what kind of error?
(a) The acceptance of Africans into European society.
(b) Philosophical thinking that questioned the power of the state.
(c) Movements against genocide and ethnic cleansing.
(d) Religious beliefs that differed from community norms.

12. What is one of the consequences that Morrison blames on minstrelsy?
(a) Racism.
(b) The debasement of language.
(c) Class warfare.
(d) The centering of African American culture.

13. In "Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.," what does Morrison say she wonders about MLK?
(a) Where he found his courage.
(b) How he preserved his sense of hope.
(c) Whether he would be disappointed in her.
(d) Whether he would be satisfied with the progress Americans have made.

14. Morrison's discussion of Huckleberry Finn in "Black Matter(s)" is intended as an illustration of what?
(a) The shadow of Puritanism in fiction.
(b) American Africanism.
(c) Gothic Romanticism.
(d) Historical accuracy in fiction.

15. What does Morrison say is a key reason for Western projections onto Africa?
(a) The persecution of indigenous Africans.
(b) Western ignorance about Africa.
(c) Africa's poverty.
(d) Missionaries' quest to Christianize Africa.

Short Answer Questions

1. The Radiance of the King is a novel by Camara Laye, an author of what origin?

2. In "Literature and Public Life," Morrison says that the public interest has been redefined as what?

3. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison retells the story of William Dunbar as an example of what?

4. In "The Slavebody and the Blackbody," what does Morrison call the "ghost in the machine"?

5. In "The Future of Time," Morrison uses repetition of what phrase?

(see the answer keys)

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