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The Black Arts Era: Short Answer Exercises

1. Fuller suggests that revolutionary black writers have begun the journey toward a “black aesthetic.” How does he define a “black aesthetic”? According to Fuller, how do writers achieve a “black aesthetic”?
2. To what extent do the historical allusions in Malcolm X’s autobiography support his assertions about the education system of the United States?
3. How do you interpret Etheridge Knight’s assertion that “life and art cannot be separated”? Identify passages in the anthology selections of his poetry that illustrate this contention.
4. To what extent does Knight’s poetry deploy conventions of black vernacular orality?
5. How does Addison Gayle conceptualize Black Nationalism?
6. What implicit definition of Black Nationalism emerges in Dutchman by Amiri Baraka?
7. Through what rhetorical strategies does Ed Bullins link love and sexuality to political imperatives?
8. What rhetorical devices does Toni Cade Bambara use to expose sociopolitical hypocrisies in U.S. systems constructed or endorsed by white supremacy and capitalism?
9. What images and other rhetorical devices of James Alan McPherson’s fiction intimate that he was trained as a lawyer?
10. What allusions to his religious faith as a Black Muslim does Eldridge Cleaver deploy in his writings?
11. According to Cortez, what is the role of the artist in the black community?
12. According to Maulana Karenga, art should play a significant role in a revolution. What role does he ascribe to Black art in the 1960s and 70s?
13. What images or phrases in Nikki Giovanni’s poetry can be argued as expressing a militant disposition?

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