Common Ground: Social Equality and the Countryside in the Long Nineteenth Century

为什么我们在乡下会跟人打招呼，而在城里却不会？农村是否有一种不分阶级或物质差别而将人们联系在一起的平等潜力？这些问题可以通过纯粹的科学或历史研究来回答;我通过研究19世纪英国诗人和散文家的社会评论来解决这些问题。他们的写作提供了一个独特的途径，让我们了解人类对快速变化的社会、人与自然的关系以及工业化的反应，我们不能仅仅用经济价值来衡量这些反应。我的跨学科项目研究人类渴望更平等的人际关系和19世纪文学散文和诗歌回归自然之间的联系，揭示了工业革命和当今快速技术创新之间的强大共同点。漫长的19世纪造就了现代政治、经济格局和人类世（人类对自然的影响），开放的田野被树篱围起来，农村劳动力迁移到城市，个人主义和进步的意识形态取代了社区权利。我解决社会平等和农村之间的连接是如何在1750年至1900年之间的文化建设，研究的相关性，了解社会方面的回归自然和农村的“平整”今天的潜力。我回顾过去，不是怀旧失去的时代，而是对社区不平等和气候变化的现代政策背景的批判性关注，认为19世纪的作家谈到了今天重新连接人，社区和环境的迫切关注。

Why do we greet people in the countryside, but not in the city? Does the countryside have a levelling potential to connect people irrespective of class or material distinctions? These questions could be answered through purely scientific or historical research; I address them by examining social commentary of British nineteenth-century (19C) poets and essayists. Their writing provides unique access into subjective, human reactions towards rapidly changing social, human-nature relations with industrialisation, feelings we cannot measure by economic value alone. My interdisciplinary project investigates links between human desire for more equal interpersonal connections and to return to nature in 19C literary prose and verse, revealing powerful common ground between the Industrial Revolution and rapid technological innovation today. The long 19C forged the modern political, economic landscape and the Anthropocene (humanity's impact on nature) open fields were enclosed by hedges, rural labourers migrated to cities, and ideologies of individualism and progress replaced communalrights. I address how connections between social equality and the countryside were culturally constructed between 1750-1900, examining the relevance for understanding social aspects of a return to nature and the countryside's 'levelling' potential today. I look to the past not with nostalgia for a lost age,but critical attention to modern policy contexts of community inequality and climate change, arguing 19C writers speak to today's urgent concern of reconnecting people, communities and environment.