At 3 pm on December 29th, the Foreign Languages College held a lecture entitled "The Rise of the British Middle Class in the 19th Century."The presenter Professor Gao Xiaoling got her Ph.D. in literature in Peking University,and now she is a doctoral tutor at the School of Foreign Languages at Zhengzhou University.The lecture was hosted by Prof. Gao Jihai from the Foreign Languages College of Henan University. There were also relevant professional teachers, undergraduates, masters and doctoral students from the Foreign Languages College.
Professor Gao detailed the British middle class and even the global middle class from the six aspects of the concept, production, division criteria, identity construction, values and influence of the middle class.Professor Gao pointed out that the concept of the middle class is ambiguous. The dividing standard includes political, economic, social, value and other factors, changing with the judgment criteria, so it is unstable.In addition,Professor Gao proposed that the identity process of the modern middle class in Britain is closely related to the rise of literary works and public places in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Gao gave detailed answers to the questions raised by the students, and talked about that we need fully understand the development of the British middle class, which help to understand the characters and plots in novels and other literary works. Therefore, literary researchers must expand their knowledge.Also,the task of literary reviewers is not to give conclusions,but to explore the complexity of literary works and inspire readers.
The lecture is brilliant and lead teachers and students to learn about the knowledge of the middle class in the UK and understand the connection between the middle class and the literary works. Everyone said that they have benefited a lot.(author:Wang Yige)
