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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does the cross demand, at the end of "Sacrifices"?
(a) Embrace in struggle.
(b) Struggle with insurmountable obstacles.
(c) Struggle with the lower self.
(d) Freedom from struggle.

3. What movement does Bataille say in "The Sacred" was heir to Vincent Van Gogh and Rimbaud?
(a) Surrealism.
(b) Transcendentalism.
(c) Cubism.
(d) Dadaism.

4. Under whom does fascism unite society, in Bataille's account?
(a) A leader who represents the aristocratic self.
(b) A leader who identifies with the state.
(c) A leader who identifies with the individual everyman.
(d) A leader who represents the lower common denominator of society.

5. What does Bataille say pyramids ensure?
(a) Glory for the monarchs inside them.
(b) The eternally egalitarian nature of death.
(c) Limitless sky on earth.
(d) Eternal life.

6. How did Engels and Hartmann differ on the tenets of Hegel's "Philosophy of Nature"?
(a) Engels believed them, but Hartmann was indifferent.
(b) Engels did not believe them, but Hartmann did.
(c) Engels believed them, but Hartmann did not.
(d) Engels was indifferent to them, but Hartmann did not believe them.

7. What does the homogeneous part of society purchase?
(a) Unions.
(b) Workers.
(c) Production.
(d) Capital.

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

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

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

11. When is the 'me' free to accept individuality and transcendence, in Bataille's opinion in "Sacrifices"?
(a) When it is dying by violence.
(b) When it is dying in peace.
(c) When it is dying in freedom.
(d) When it is dying in religion.

12. With whose picture does Bataille say Nietzsche's picture was paired?
(a) Hitler's.
(b) Hegel's.
(c) Darwin's.
(d) Lou Andreas-Salomé's.

13. What did professor Hartmann dispute about the treatment of the Marx/Hegel dialectic?
(a) He objects that it is based on pseudo-science.
(b) He objects that it is only applicable in certain cases.
(c) He objects that it is not a law of reality.
(d) He objects that it is not grounded in political science.

14. How does bourgeois society enslave and degrade poor men, in Bataille's opinion?
(a) By showering them with goods.
(b) By preventing them getting medical attention.
(c) By keeping them poor.
(d) By forcing them to compete with machines.

15. When does being become undefined, according to Bataille?
(a) When it is projected on an unworthy object.
(b) When it is projected beyond itself.
(c) When it is discovered in another.
(d) When it is drawn from imagination.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the significance of the obelisk in "The Obelisk"?

2. Which of the following does Bataille NOT use as an example of unproductive expenditure without value beyond itself?

3. What does Bataille say scientists said about the dialectic?

4. What does Bataille use as evidence of his position on dialectics?

5. What was the purpose of the Popular Front, in Bataille's account?

(see the answer keys)

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