As we all know, the problem of how much reading a student is willing to do for a subject complicates enormously our task. A few weeks ago, one of our Erasmus students abroad explained that a typical Literature course in the university she’s visiting, Edinburgh, might have up to 10 books –basically one per week. […]
Two pieces published within days by Alison Flood in the Books section of The Guardian catch my attention. I’m wondering here how they connect –I think they do. The first one announces that “Most writers earn less than £600 a year, survey reveals” (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/writers-earn-less-than-600-a-year); the second reports that “Writers attack ‘overrated’ Anglo-American literature at Jaipur […]
Yesterday I spent a complicated morning dealing with students whose papers presented evidence or suspicion of plagiarism. It used to be the case that students plagiarised from solid academic sources in full knowledge of what they did. The explanation that our very surprised students are now offering is that they have no idea how a […]
I have already written several entries about the matter of salaries. This one is prompted by a news item published in many media on 13th January regarding a seminar and a report by the ACUP (Associació Catalana d’Universitats Públiques). Their web (www.acup.cat) has detailed information about the seminar, including an interesting document which compares university […]
I have mentioned exams now and then here but have not really got around writing specifically about them. After marking a batch of 63 during two very intense working days (that’s 126 short essays on Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) this seems a good moment […]
An ex-student who’s now a good friend and a brilliant scholar tells me that he’s about to publish a volume based on his PhD dissertation. So far, so good. What truly scares the bejeesus out of my scholarly self is what he explains next. It seems that his publishing house (a mid-range academic one) warned […]
Time does fly… I first read about the new Swedish film rating system against sexism back in November, made a note to discuss it here but then other topics caught my attention. I don’t understand Swedish and I’ll have to rely, therefore, on English-language media for an explanation of how the rating system works. Have […]