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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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) Toni Morrison.
(c) Romare Bearden.
(d) A high-school student.

2. Morrison begins "Moral Inhabitants" with a list of what Colonial import and export items?
(a) Guns.
(b) Indentured servants.
(c) Slaves.
(d) Bibles and other religious tracts.

3. In "Race Matters," Morrison says that she refuses to write in what voice?
(a) The slave's.
(b) The master's.
(c) A race-specific one.
(d) A masculine one.

4. In "The Future of Time," Morrison worries that we increasingly turn to the past for what?
(a) Answers to current problems.
(b) Visions of what our future could be.
(c) Philosophical wisdom.
(d) Evidence to confirm our biases.

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) The boundless creation of wealth.
(b) Corporate control of formerly public spaces.
(c) The erasure of the line between public and private.
(d) Its division of people into "center" and "margin."

6. What does Morrison say is at its greatest height since the time of the slave trade?
(a) Legislative attempts to integrate newcomers.
(b) The mass movement of people.
(c) Globalism.
(d) The opening of boarders.

7. In her "Sarah Lawrence Commencement Address," Morrison defines "dreaming" as what?
(a) A meditative state that improves the creative capacity of the Self.
(b) An impractical luxury we cannot afford in modern times.
(c) Deliberate imagining that creates intimacy with the Other.
(d) Wasted time engaged in wishful thinking.

8. In "The Slavebody and the Blackbody," when Morrison suggests that writing about slavery cuts away at the scar tissue the blackbody uses to hide the slavebody, what technique is she using?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Figurative language.
(c) Ethos.
(d) Logos.

9. In "Women, Race, and Memory," Morrison uses the phrase "internecine conflict." In context, this phrase means what?
(a) Hostility between the classes.
(b) Conflict between women.
(c) A philosophical difference that divides a group.
(d) A conflict that hurts both sides.

10. In "The Individual Artist," what does Morrison find interesting about the feud between literary critics from different schools of criticism?
(a) Black authors are being centered in the canon for the first time.
(b) It has been covered in the Times Literary Supplement.
(c) There seems to be no place for the artist in the argument.
(d) Structuralists see the work as a dynamic interaction between reader and text.

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

12. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison retells the story of William Dunbar as an example of what?
(a) A critic who understands the significance of Black art.
(b) A prototypical American white male.
(c) A slave who struggled to make his voice heard.
(d) A victim of state violence.

13. Where did Morrison go to school as a child?
(a) In public schools in Ohio that had never been segregated.
(b) In segregated private schools in New York.
(c) In public schools in Florida that were suddenly segregated while she was a student.
(d) In desegregated private schools throughout America.

14. In the story that opens "The Nobel Lecture in Literature," what do the children ask the old woman about?
(a) A baby.
(b) Love.
(c) Death.
(d) A bird.

15. In "The Nobel Lecture in Literature," What does Morrison refer to with the phrase "tongue-suicide"?
(a) The death of language.
(b) A refusal to speak for what is right.
(c) Lying.
(d) The willingness to ban and destroy books.

Short Answer Questions

1. In her "Sarah Lawrence Commencement Address," Morrison says that one of her aims is to do what?

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

3. According to Morrison, globalism creates a fear of what?

4. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison says that immigration from the Old World to the New World is usually seen as what?

5. Morrison compares the Africa of the Western imagination to what legendary monster?

(see the answer keys)

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