Reference no: EM133311702
Assignment:
Answer the following questions:
1. In the United States today, why might some people consider Christopher Columbus to be a controversial figure in Western history, perhaps not worthy of a federally recognized holiday honoring his memory?
2. What role does Quetzalcoatl play in the Aztec spiritual tradition cited in class, and why is the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes linked to the memory of this religious figure?
3. The Inca were known to be masterful builders using a specific material, what is this material, what was unique about how the Inca used it, and what about the geography of the Inca Empire leaves us especially impressed with their architectural accomplishments?
4. In the beginning of Chapter Nine, Homi Bhabha describes a problem we have in museums and in textbooks with the cultural artifacts we are studying from the Age of Encounter. What is this problem, and how can we try to address it?
5. The Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias was the first European to sail where? Why was this an especially difficult achievement, and what did his voyage allow later Europeans to do?
6. Why is it difficult to estimate the total number of Africans taken across the "Middle Passage" in the slave trade, and what accounts for the fact that the largest African population in the Americas was in the Portuguese colony of Brazil?
7. What is the spiritual concept of feng shui in China, and what does this concept have to do with modern civil engineering? (for example, when we build a Costco superstore on top of old farm land).
8. How did the British East India company manage to convince the rulers of India to hand over their mineral, manufacturing and trade rights to the British government, and what were the consequences of that "bargain"?
9. In John Milton's Paradise Lost, how does Lucifer (Satan) symbolize the common citizen in John Locke's philosophy of Liberalism, and after they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... 1) who does Adam blame, and why does he think this, and 2) who does Eve blame for their collective disobedience and why does she feel this way?
10. In his advocacy for the political theory of Absolutism, Thomas Hobbes referenced the scientific theory of universal gravitation and the notion that the planets in our solar system, by their nature, revolve around the sun. Who are like the planets in this analogy and who is the sun?
11. Give an example of what Francis Bacon meant when he suggested that the greatest obstacle to human understanding was, "superstition, and the blind and immoderate zeal of religion." Explain your example in the context of Bacon's Idol of the Cave.
12. Briefly explain one specific way that John Locke's Enlightenment Era political philosophy known as Liberalism is relevant to the founding and/or current structure of the United States government.
13. According to the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who or what is the "noble savage," and what do Captain James Cook and the Tahitian people have to do with this concept?
14. Why is the name of Jonathan Swift's satirical text, A Modest Proposal, ironic, and what does it mean to be a noble according to Gulliver in Book Four of Gulliver's Travels?
15. How does Isaac Newton's metaphor about the "great clock maker" explain the underlying theology of Deism?