I have a list of themes waiting to be addressed, as the series of protests culminating in today’s general strike demand more attention than what might seem today just trivial Literature matters. How I long to get back to normality, if this can ever happen in this abnormal, subnormal, paranormal culture of ours. Let me […]
More of the same yesterday to begin our day: the Facultat uglified by barricades in each corridor (wo)manned by humourless, verbally aggressive students defending the ‘consensus’ reached by the assembly to stop all lecturing. We do whatever we can to defend our right to teach/learn: go on-line, go elsewhere… Our own English Studies students have […]
Yesterday you and me found ourselves unable to access our classrooms and teach, which is what we love doing and are (under)paid for. The corridors were blocked by the usual assembly students announcing that the Facultat had been occupied and that it was in everyone’s interest not to do any teaching or learning… to guarantee […]
My good friend Pere Gallardo from Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona has just organised the first English Studies SF conference in Spain. 18 of us, SF academic fans and shcolars, met last Friday 16 (see the list at http://www.sciencefictionppab.blogspot.com.es/) and promised to stay in touch to meet again in one year’s time at my home […]
[I pretty much doubt that our busy Dean, Teresa Cabré –just re-elected– reads my blog, yet here’s my open letter for her (just in case, you never know).] Dear Dean, As I’m sure you know very well from personal experience, the ‘Facultat’ decided in time immemorial (before my time as a student) to start lectures […]
One of the wonders of teaching is that one never stops learning. Here’s proof. I’ve been teaching my first year students an introduction to the short story, based on Mansfield (“Bliss”), Joyce (“The Sisters”) and Woolf (“Kew Gardens”). I insisted that the Modernist short story is only one branch of the modern short story and […]
They say that envy is the national Spanish sin (avarice would be the Catalan one). This week I’ve used my evenings to read, out of envy, María Dueñas’s best-selling novel El tiempo entre costuras (2009). Why the envy? Well, Dueñas is one of us: a teacher at the English Department of the Universidad de Murcia. […]
Yesterday the public Catalan universities went on strike against the too many budget cuts that we’re suffering. I didn’t join the strike as a) my not teaching students for one day does not bother anyone, b) I’m sick and tired of giving back more and more money every month to the Government(s) between the pay […]