View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Bataille describe as a symptom of cultural crisis?
(a) Bureaucratic regulation.
(b) Outrageous profits.
(c) Administrative impudence.
(d) Technological incompetence.

2. What is the significance of the obelisk in "The Obelisk"?
(a) It organizes space by looming over it.
(b) It represents the ruling party.
(c) It represents captured glory.
(d) It stands for the sovereign.

3. What tone did Andre Masson establish in his drawings?
(a) Cosmological-orgiastic.
(b) Orgastic-ashen.
(c) Ashen-biological.
(d) Biological-cosmological.

4. What does Bataille say man demanded of the earth?
(a) Answers.
(b) Productivity on the earth.
(c) Consolation below the earth.
(d) Necessity above the universe.

5. What does Bataille describe as the only truly liberating act?
(a) Lovemaking.
(b) Art.
(c) Revolutionary destruction.
(d) Suicide.

6. What does Bataille say scientists said about the dialectic?
(a) It was demonstrated in evolution.
(b) It was the one true science.
(c) It was a matter of faith.
(d) It was incompatible with science.

7. What does Bataille define as a way to humiliate, defy, or obligate a poorer person as a show of destruction of wealth?
(a) Public Assistance.
(b) Welfare.
(c) Government subsidies.
(d) Potlatch.

8. What did Engels work for eight years to develop, but ultimately disavow?
(a) A dialectics of religion.
(b) A dialectics of manufacturing.
(c) A dialectics of mathematics.
(d) A dialectics of nature.

9. What are the two classes Bataille divides consumption into?
(a) Conspicuous consumption and invisible consumption.
(b) Sacrificial consumption and gift consumption.
(c) Productive consumption and wasteful consumption.
(d) Conservation of life and productive activity.

10. What aspect of the Marx/Hegel dialectic did professor Hartmann test?
(a) Descriptive accuracy.
(b) Reasoning.
(c) Aesthetics.
(d) Diagnostic accuracy.

11. What was Nietzsche's relationship with fascism, in Bataille's account?
(a) He was active in opposition to it.
(b) He claimed to be a prophet of a culture of power.
(c) He was active in support of it.
(d) He was opposed to political parties.

12. What does Bataille say would result from a difference of events in his experience?
(a) He would be an other.
(b) He would have to confront his true self.
(c) He would reveal his alter-ego.
(d) He would be at war with himself.

13. What is the significance of the image of the labyrinth in the "The Labyrinth"?
(a) It is a symbol of man's inner state.
(b) It represents the deadly stakes in self-knowledge.
(c) It is a metaphor for being.
(d) It is a metaphor for social existence.

14. What does Bataille's 'me in the void' realize in "Sacrifices"?
(a) That he doesn't exist.
(b) That he might have to create himself.
(c) That he might cease to exist.
(d) That he has dominion over everything.

15. What does homogeneity depend on?
(a) A productive system.
(b) Continual revolution.
(c) Workers owning the means of production.
(d) Owners keeping the workers down.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Nietzsche's life dominated by, in Bataille's account?

2. What type of men's 'being' does Bataille compare in "The Labyrinth"?

3. What claim does Bataille make in "The Obelisk"?

4. What does Bataille say money measures, in "Psychological Structure of Fascism"?

5. What did Bataille and Andre Masson dream about as Bataille was writing "The Labyrinth"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 576 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample