MH Master of Humanities 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which Renaissance humanist wrote 'The Prince,' a foundational text in political theory?
- Erasmus of Rotterdam
- Thomas More
- Niccolò Machiavelli (Correct answer)
- Francesco Petrarch
Correct answer: Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' (1532), a pragmatic treatise on political power that separated politics from conventional morality.
Question 2: What is the 'linguistic turn' in humanities scholarship?
- A shift to studying non-Western languages
- The recognition that language shapes and limits our understanding of reality (Correct answer)
- The adoption of computational linguistics in literary studies
- The return to Latin as a scholarly language
Correct answer: The recognition that language shapes and limits our understanding of reality
The linguistic turn refers to the late 20th-century shift in humanities toward viewing language not just as a tool but as constitutive of social reality and knowledge.
Question 3: In literary theory, what is the 'death of the author' as proposed by Roland Barthes?
- The idea that authors should not profit from their work after death
- The argument that the author's intentions are irrelevant to a text's meaning (Correct answer)
- The biographical study of deceased writers
- The removal of authorship credits to promote anonymity
Correct answer: The argument that the author's intentions are irrelevant to a text's meaning
Roland Barthes argued in 1967 that the author's intentions and biography should not constrain literary interpretation, liberating meaning to emerge from the reader.
Question 4: Which period in Western history is characterized by the phrase 'the Dark Ages,' and what do most modern historians think of this term?
- The Renaissance; historians consider it accurate because learning declined
- The Early Middle Ages; most historians reject it as misleading and Eurocentric (Correct answer)
- The Late Roman Empire; historians use it to describe political chaos
- The Reformation; historians embrace it to describe religious conflict
Correct answer: The Early Middle Ages; most historians reject it as misleading and Eurocentric
The 'Dark Ages' typically refers to the Early Middle Ages in Europe, but most historians reject the term as an oversimplification that ignores significant cultural and intellectual activity of the period.
Question 5: What is 'intersectionality' as a concept in humanities and social theory?
- The overlap between literature and visual art
- The interconnected nature of social identities like race, gender, and class, and how they create overlapping systems of discrimination (Correct answer)
- A method of comparing texts from different cultures
- The relationship between geography and cultural development
Correct answer: The interconnected nature of social identities like race, gender, and class, and how they create overlapping systems of discrimination
Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality to describe how overlapping social identities create compounded forms of discrimination and privilege.
Question 6: Which literary device involves saying one thing but meaning the opposite, often for humorous or critical effect?
- Hyperbole
- Irony (Correct answer)
- Euphemism
- Litotes
Correct answer: Irony
Irony is the expression of meaning through language that signifies the opposite, often creating contrast between appearance and reality.
Question 7: In philosophy, which school of thought holds that knowledge is primarily derived from sensory experience?
- Rationalism
- Idealism
- Empiricism (Correct answer)
- Stoicism
Correct answer: Empiricism
Empiricism, associated with Locke, Hume, and Berkeley, maintains that knowledge originates in and is validated through sensory experience rather than innate reason.
MH Master of Humanities 4
Which Renaissance humanist wrote 'The Prince,' a foundational text in political theory?