I have lost count of how often I have taught R.L. Stevenson’s masterpiece The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, on which I have published here several posts, as this seems to be an inexhaustible text. I return once more to it after having marked the most recent batch of students’ exams to […]
Who or what is to blame for the idea that whoever dares speak in public must, above all, entertain? The adjective ‘boring’ has become absolutely pervasive in the classroom and, no doubt, a major enemy of learning. In recent days I have gone through so many situations connected with this that it is hard to […]
On 5 January this year I published here a post on a new Swedish system to rate films according to their feminist interest. In this post I mentioned in passing Frozen, noting that, although this Disney film exalts sisterly love, after seeing it my two Madrid nieces didn’t hug each other but remained “mesmerised,” poor […]
Recently, I went to Laie in search of a copy of Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Platero y yo (1914) for my nine-year-old niece. I asked for an edition aimed at children, meaning illustrated, and I was offered instead an adapted edition. Scandalized that someone had dared touch the original, I bought her a beautiful edition commemorating […]