I’ve read back to back Frederick Douglass’ autobiography Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892) and Emmeline Pankhurst’s memoirs My Own Story (1914), just by chance. The first page of her volume already shows how closely connected both books are, for Pankhurst (1858-1928) was the daughter of British activists and she writes that […]
We live in the darkest times. As I wait for Putin to start WW III in Crimea, an article in El País catches my attention: “La caída de personal y financiación hace regresar al CSIC una década atrás” (http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/02/24/actualidad/1393271163_538095.html). CSIC, the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, the sub-heading announces, has lost already 2,200 workers and […]
As I assumed it would happen, someone asks me what happens if during coffee with the teacher something else comes up. Actually she tells me her own story with an ex-teacher, now her romantic partner. This is my answer… the public one, the private is for her eyes only. I was once a member of […]
I’m preparing my lecture/seminar on J.K. Rowling, the author, for tomorrow and I have finally decided to turn to my blog, see if writing a post clarifies my confused thoughts. The idea is to discuss with my students what kind of writer Rowling is from a Cultural Studies point of view, taking into account her […]
I was having coffee with an American visiting scholar and a local colleague from UB, and, I’m not sure in what exact moment of the conversation, he asked whether we had the habit of taking coffee with students, meaning the teachers in each Department. My colleague quickly replied “no, we don’t” and I answered almost […]
I have started teaching my elective subject ‘Cultural Studies in English: The Harry Potter Series’ this week… and it’s been a very good beginning. I have around 50 students, of which 8 (I think) are auditors (non-registered students who get no credits); they come from BA degrees such as Translation or Anthropology and three are […]
A doctoral student who was supposed to defend (as we say) his PhD dissertation next September suddenly tells me he’s giving up –in his fifth year. I’m writing this aware that he might read it and after emailing him advice about what he needs to consider before quitting for good (if at all). With many […]
Following the thread started by my reading Solomon Northup’s memoir Twelve Years a Slave (1853), prompted by Steve McQueen’s film adaptation, I came across a list of films about slavery. This included Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kemble (2000), an apparently mediocre TV movie. I knew about Kemble as a famous Victorian English actress […]
I recently came across some online form asking for my h-index. The same site explained about the need to open a Google Scholars account, so I opened one and found that my h-index was 0. I’m so stupid I didn’t realise I should have to enter my publications manually one by one for Google to […]
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. […]