These days the Spanish press is abuzz with news of the harsh treatment which Spanish writers are receiving from Hacienda, our local tax revenue agency. I have already signed the corresponding Change.org campaign asking the Government to reconsider the regulations implemented back in 2013. I agree 100% that this yet another attack against the persons […]
Marking the essays on Victorian Literature by my second-year students I’m puzzled by three which read the corresponding literary texts they analyze in terms of whether they are adequate for the present. One, in particular, focuses the paper almost entirely on why a recent film adaptation of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and […]
A while ago a colleague told me it would be nice to have a list of films for our students and for any interested colleague to educate themselves in cinema History. More than 100 years after the brothers Lumière set the foundations for the birth of a new art, cinema is not yet an integral […]
Yes, I finally saw yesterday Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It has been very hard to avoid the spoilers for a couple of weeks (yet I must also marvel at the conspiracy of silence to conceal some major plot turns!). Harder to miss were the tepid reactions of most professional reviewers. Given their warnings, I […]
Yesterday, I got via email news of the publication of a new manifesto, the ‘Manifiesto por la inclusión de los Estudios Feministas, de Mujeres y de Género en la Universidad’. I signed it at once, wondering whether it is a good idea to launch this kind of initiative when most academics are off email because […]
Last 11 December, UNESCO officially designated Barcelona new City of Literature within the Creative Cities Network (http://cat.elpais.com/cat/2015/12/11/cultura/1449842212_437362.html). The first City of Literature was Edinburgh, awarded the title in 2004 (see their handsome website, http://www.cityofliterature.com/). 11 years later, the list extends to 20 Cities of Literature, some a bit surprising given their complicated political background: Edinburgh, […]
I have so far supervised 4 doctoral dissertations, I am currently supervising 4 more and have been asked in the last month to supervise other 4 dissertations. This nice symmetry is completed by the fact that 4 students who started writing their doctoral dissertation under my supervision have eventually abandoned it. The 16 cases teach […]
This piece of news has taken a long time to reach my ears, which since then are ringing. The very fact that it did not make front lines in Spain (which I do check more or less daily) is proof enough of the insidious ways in which the Humanities are under attack. To cut to […]
I have an exceptional student in class. This is when you know that someone might pursue an academic career and quite possibly do much better than any teacher s/he’s met at university, including yourself. I have gone through that a few times and it’s beautiful, pure enjoyment. I am, however, concerned that this kind of […]
There are many things that are disappointing about the 21st century. Surely we can do without the flying cars so often fantasized, and even prophesized, by SF writers. Yet, it is both tragic and absurd that religious wars and racism persist. A time will come, hopefully, when the need to kill people on behalf of […]