A FAMILY SNAPSHOT: LITERATURE IN THE 39TH AEDEAN CONFERENCE

Last week I attended the beautifully organized 39th AEDEAN (Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos) conference at the University of Deusto, in Bilbao. The association has about 1,100 members–quite a substantial number–of whom about 200/250, depending on the year, present work at the conference. I always say that the conference’s strong point is networking and PR: […]

IN SEARCH OF GOOD MEN (AS ANTI-PATRIARCHAL ROLE MODELS)

I have finally seen the BBC’s adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House (2005) and Little Dorrit (2008), both scripted by the very talented Andrew Davies. Although I bought the DVD pack which includes both basically because I wanted to see the highly famed Bleak House, and I had no particular interest in seeing Little Dorrit, I […]

GOING BACK WITH ALICE TO CHILDHOOD (WITHIN LIMITS)

Next week I am returning to Wonderland once again, this time to introduce the students in my Victorian Literature class to Carroll’s classic. To be honest, I’m not completely sure that I like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) in the same way I like, for instance, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911). I’m truly […]

BOXED IN: ACADEMIC LIFE, TERRITORIALISM AND STRAYING OFF THE PATH (WITH THE BOLSHOI BALLET)

I have just accepted tutoring an MA dissertation on how the new digital media conditions the task of the dancer and choreographer. What is an (English) Literature teacher doing supervising this? Let me retrace the steps. Since I have always been interested in the process of film adaptation, having published many articles about it, and […]

THE PARADOXES OF MIGRATION: SILENCES, ABSENCES AND UNHEEDED (LITERARY) WARNINGS

I have attended this week the international conference “New Typologies of (E/Im)Migration: Mobility and Transcultural Spaces” beautifully organized by my good friend José Manuel Estévez Sáa (http://www.josemanuelestevezsaa.com/). This was also the 17th Culture and Power International Conference, marking the twentieth anniversary of our seminar’s activities (http://www.cultureandpower.org/). I am not myself at all a specialist in […]

PREPARING FOR DISASTER: READING POST-APOCALYPTIC FICTION

Post-apocalyptic fiction deals, as it names indicates, with the aftermath of a catastrophe which affects a very large territory or even the whole world. Typically, an individual or a small group of survivors narrate their efforts to rebuild civilization, or to accept reluctantly that it is gone for ever. In some extreme cases, only one […]