I’d run out of reading matter a few stops from my station, which is annoying, when a hassled thirty-something mum got on, dragging a feisty six-year-old and holding a crying, twisting, screaming two-year-old. They sat opposite me. For some puzzling reason, the baby was shouting at the top of her lungs for ‘The hen! The […]
I invite to my Contemporary British Theatre class Prof. Mireia Aragay and Prof. Enric Monforte of the University of Barcelona, two of the best Spanish specialists in the field and co-authors of the excellent collection of interviews with directors, playwrights, critics and academics, British Theatre of the 1990s (Palgrave, 2007) I interview them with interventions […]
Happily for me, I’ve been commissioned a short book on heterosexuality for the collection ‘Los textos del cuerpo’ (EDIUOC) that the research group I belong to (‘Body and Textuality’, coordinated by Dr. Meri Torras) has been publishing since 2009. I’m now at the stage of putting together a bibliography… and making decisions about how much […]
I assume that what I’m going to complain about here is something that British Theatre specialists know very well. Yet, since I am not really a specialist and only teach theatre now and then, I must say that I’m surprised by the lack of good material on YouTube. The last time I taught a drama […]
I read on the train –how/where else?– John Berger’s brief novel From A to X: A Story in Letters (2008) and I’m moved as I hadn’t been in a long time by what I can only describe as its exquisite prose. Some readers, as I see in Amazon, are annoyed by Berger’s vagueness about where […]
An angry student comes to my office to tell me how badly I do my job because, in her view, her paper has been unfairly awarded an appallingly low grade. Yes, a 2 is low indeed. I agree. As the temperature in the room rises I try explain to her, not as calm as I […]
Remember my last post? Now, this is what happens on my first day of the second semester this year 2010-11, third of the global financial crisis. I find that I must teach my first year 20th Century Literature class in a gigantic classroom which holds about 40 more seats than required (88 students registered, actual […]
My second semester subjects begin tomorrow and I’m nervous in anticipation. Yes, I’ve been a university teacher for almost twenty years but I still have trouble sleeping the night before a new semester begins. The first lecture is always important to set the tone for the whole subject and my nervousness springs from this need […]
One of my UOC students has the kindness of emailing me a message of thanks for my patience and efficiency –I hope this doesn’t sound too smug– and I feel a knot in my throat. The message comes at the right time, for I have spent a good two hours over lunch commiserating with a […]
When preparing a new subject what is usually a free-time activity for fun suddenly becomes work. I’m now reading non-stop for a subject on Contemporary British Drama (1980s-2000s), which I haven’t taught in a long time and truly look forward to teaching this second semester, and, so, now attending any play means work, yes, even […]