[This one is for my ‘English Theatre’ students] I feel quite frustrated today because one of my students in the elective subject ‘English Theatre’ has walked out on me –even before classes begin. Actually, two have done so, one for job-related reasons and the one that worries me because (her claim) she’s very shy. As […]
I was showing my city, Barcelona, to a friend from Madrid almost 20 years ago and when I explained that the Ciutadella (the Citadel) had been built to humiliate the city inhabitants after the Castilian takeover of 1714, he asked in surprise, “What do you mean ‘Castilian takeover’?”. Gosh, did I get that wrong at […]
My colleague Andrew Monnickendam gave a plenary lecture at the last AEDEAN conference on Scottish writer Mary Brunton (1778-1818), one of the authors he deals with in his new book The Novels of Walter Scott and his Literary Relations (Mary Brunton, Susan Ferrier and Christian Johnstone). His presentation of Brunton’s Self-Control (1811) did call my […]
Before writing this post I have checked my other two posts, written in the same week of January, in 2011 and 2012. Yes, this is the time when I must mark the papers (1,200 words on average each, including abstract and bibliography) for Victorian Literature (second year, compulsory). This year there are 53, I’ve gone […]
I’m a big Kathryn Bigelow fan, which means that my personal impression about the very high quality of her newest film, Zero Dark Thirty, is totally unreliable. I don’t wish to review it formally here but I’ll say that it’s 160 minutes are thrilling, even though every one knows how they end. Bigelow’s film is […]