I took a quick glance at the FAQ, so if I missed my question I apologize ahead of time. I have narrowed down my research paper down to the post-colonial impact on gender fluidity and sexuality on African colonies, Latin American colonies and the Native Americans (and their well-documented 2 spirit designation). However I thought of my question a little more, and with the help of a tutor began to question when the "Eastern" and "Western" world began to separate from each other. So when does the East and West split, was it when the Romans started to conquer left and right? Was it with the creation of the Catholic Church and the Great Schism? Or was the split for a different reason? Edit: Just to clarify I want to know the general consensus, if there is one, as to when the the train of thoughts began to divulge from one another in Europe and Asia despite all being one big land mass. Just for the sake of keeping things simple, Europe is the "West" and Asia is the "East".
This really depends upon what you mean by an East/West split. Typically, 'West' refers to Western Europe, essentially defined by the dominance of Latin (as opposed to Greek) within the Roman Empire, and extending roughly to the Balkans as its border. Everything east of that is 'East', but it depends upon time period, and particularly upon 'constructed' identity. Because you can talk about the eastern half of the Roman Empire as 'the East', but you can talk about the Sassanids as the 'East' outside the Empire, and in fact from a Western-European perspective everything is always 'East'.
I guess I am trying to say you will need to articulate your question in less abstract terms, because doing such meta-history is not going to help you write a research paper. Abstractly theorising on 'the construction of 'West' as an identity and the othering of the East' is just not going to be doable in a research paper setting.