THE QUIET AMERICAN: GREENE, MANKIEWICZ, NOYCE AND PHUONG

I’m teaching a course on the witness in Vietnam War books and films. This includes Coppola’s overblown Apocalypse Now! with Heart of Darkness, The Quiet American with its two film versions, Ron Kovic’s truly sad memoir Born on the 4th July with Oliver Stone’s memorable adaptation, and Le Ly Hayslip’s moving two-volume autobiography, filmed also […]

ENGLAND, ENGLAND… AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR CULTURAL STUDIES AND LITERATURE OF RAISING UNIVERSITY TUITION FEES

A very dear ex-student, Cristina Delgado, emails me a photo in which she appears sitting on the ground in the middle of the street with her boyfriend, surrounded by an impressive human wall made up of police agents. Both are doctoral students in England, just two among the many thousands forced to take the streets […]

THE BOOK OF LIFE (IN MEMORIAM MIA VICTORI)

A very dear Department colleague, Mia Victori, passed away early this week, on November 29, the victim of an unexpected, massive stroke. She was only 44, and died while enjoying with her children and her sister a long-wished for sabbatical in California. We are all devastated, groping in the dark for clues that allow us […]

PREPARING JUST ONE LITERATURE CLASS

To begin with, I’m aware than I’m probably misusing the word ‘class’ as in the Anglo-American world teachers give lectures and teach seminars, whereas we, here in Spain, do a mixture of both, and, so, we teach ‘classes.’ Somebody correct me if I’m doubly wrong, please. Anyway, here’s my ranting and raving for today. If […]

PAYING TO READ MYSELF

Many people assume that because a handful of writers make a spectacular living off their best-selling books, any writer makes money. So far, if I count what I have invested in my writing and what I have gained, I am awfully, appallingly in the red. I have the experience of earning nothing whatsoever from a […]

SEXUAL FANTASIES AND VICTORIAN FICTION

I ask the students to read a passage in Great Expectations which ends with the sentence “I must obey.” One of them pretends to mishear me and asks in surprise “masturbate?” The whole class laughs at the fake Freudian slip and we start then a conversation on Pip’s (and Heathcliff’s) strange sexual lives. If they […]

MORE STATISTIC IMPOSSIBILITIES (WHO AM I WRITING FOR?)

Let me return to the idea of how statistic impossibility undermines our common ground from another angle. This came up time ago in conversation with a colleague at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ángel Mateos (another SF fan!!). We were wondering one day about how many readers any of our publications actually get and how […]