The Joys of Teaching Literature, started in September 2010 and with a Spanish version since July 2021, is a blog for ranting and raving about teaching and researching English Literature, Cultural Studies, and Gender Studies, and other aspects of the Anglophone world. I publish a post once a week, usually on Monday. Please, download the yearly volumes for free or read the volume collecting some of the entries (Passionate Professing: The Context and Practice of English Literature, 2023). The comments option is not available, sorry, but you may contact me through my e-mail address, Sara.Martin@uab.cat. The contents of this blog are protected by a type 4 Creative Common License (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd)).

  • TUTORING TFG/BA DISSERTATIONS ON VIDEOGAMES IN ENGLISH STUDIES: THE WALKING DEAD AND THE LAST OF US

    I have access at home to three consoles, none of which I can operate–the plain truth is that I’m not a gamer and might never be. I do care, however, for how videogames are evolving. Nobody should ignore them if only because for more than a decade they have been generating much bigger business than…

  • CONFUSED BY LOVE: READING ANDRÉ ACIMAN’S CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

    [Warning: this post deals with the novel Call Me by Your Name and contains spoilers!] One of my TFG (or BA dissertation) tutorees, Marc, has chosen to work on the novel Call Me by Your Name (2007) by Egyptian-born American author André Aciman. You may have already seen the successful film adaptation directed by Lucca…

  • A CLOSER LOOK AT PATRIARCHY THROUGH SOME KEY BOOKS

    Since I am always ranting and raving about patriarchy, I have been taking a closer look at the key bibliography on the topic. The discussion of patriarchy appears to be disseminated among many heterogeneous texts and has not generated one single essential volume, though I grant that Austrian-American historian Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy…

  • WHAT ABOUT THE LITTLE BOYS?: LOOKING FOR NEW MODELS

    These days all of Catalonia is choosing the books that our family, partners and friends will receive on Saint Jordi’s Day. One thing you may have noticed is that there is a significant increase in the offer of books about feminism and, generally, women’s issues. These include many volumes addressed to little girls; particularly popular…

  • IT COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE: SINCLAIR LEWIS, THE RISE OF FASCISM (AND KENNETH JOHNSON’S LIZARDS)

    I recently downloaded Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can’t_Happen_Here) by mistake, believing it was the source for the delicious Frank Capra comedy film You Can’t Take it with You (1938, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can’t_Take_It_with_You_(film)). Any fool can see that the titles are very different but, well, mistakes do happen… I had read another novel…