On the morning of June19, the fifthsessionof international seminar on “Culture and Literature” hostedby the School of Foreign Language was heldon theVoov Meetingplatform as scheduled. Thekeynotespeaker, Professor Roddey Reid,delivereda wonderful lecture titled “Contemporary Cultures of Bullying and Intimidation” tothe audience.Professor Jiao Xiaoting from the School of Foreign Language presided over the seminar. More than 200 persons joined in it.
Professor Reid’s lecture is based onhisresearch going back to 2005 on cultures of intimidation and bullying in the United States and Europe andconsists offour parts: definition of bullying, origins of contemporary bullying in the United States, changing public awareness of bullying and the features of bullying. He defined bullying as aggressive verbal and non-verbal behavior towards individuals or groups,whichseek to humiliate and dishonor its targets. He thought that U.S. culture of bully was legacy of a long violent history characterized by the aggressive pursuit of individual and collective sovereignty at the expense of other individuals and groups.Originally, bullying and intimidation was considered as a problem confined to childhood and its educational institutions, but gradually it was considered as a ubiquitous phenomenon in many places among many groups.Furthermore, Professor Reid argued that identifying and naming the experience of bullyingwere oftenvery difficult, especially due to the arbitrary and invisible nature of psychological aggression. He also believed that the rise of old and new media exacerbated bullying which featured the manipulation of appearances, character and motives, as well a passive-aggressive form of accusation or attack. At last, Professor Reid concluded that repeated bullying resulted in a climate of fear and intimidation.
At the end of the lecture,Vice-DeanFu Jiangtaoand other teachershad a heated discussion on the difference between bully and intimidation, ways to handle bullying in workplace,andresponsibility of the victims, etc.(Author: Ding Lan,Jiang Shu)
