Sappho and Murasaki Shikibu represent the first two female authors we have encountered in this course. In your Week 1 paper, you were asked to consider how gender is portrayed in The Odyssey. Additionally, in our Week 2 reading of Antigone, gender roles played a pivotal part in the conflict between Creon and the daughter of Oedipus. Selecting either the poems of Sappho or The Tale of Genji, offer a discussion of how either author portrays or defines the cultural roles of men and women. How does this understanding of gender differ from the works of the ancient Greek writers we have read?

1. Compare the travels by Zheng He and Christopher Columbus regarding the following:

the purpose of their travel
as the results of their travel
the way they met the people and what happened to the people they met
taking the following factors into account:(navigational, military, scientific, social, political, etc…
the imposition of Eurocentric ideas on independent cultures
the Doctrine of Discovery/Eurocentric value system