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)).

  • FAILING TO EXIST: THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE AND THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

    Just one year ago I wrote a post about Conchita Wurst’s unexpected triumph at the Eurovision Song Contest. This year’s edition was broadcast last Saturday from Austria, her homeland. The winner was the handsome Måns Zelmerlöw, representing Sweden, in tight competition with the pretty Polina Gagarina, representing Russia. I know that my remark is far…

  • ‘VAMOS A LA PLAYA, OH, OH, OH…’: ACADEMIC LIFE (IN SOUTHERN EUROPE, ON A TRULY GLORIOUS DAY)

    It’s an absolutely glorious day outside, with temperatures around an ideal 25º, not a cloud in sight. The beach is 5 kms. away, reachable in under 40 minutes by metro and here I am, hearing in my head the chorus of that catchy 1983 summer hit by Italo-disco Righeira, singing in Spanish: ‘Vamos a la…

  • STAGE TO SCREEN: A POORLY UNDERSTOOD TRANSITION

    I will not refer in this post to the film adaptation of stage plays, though if you’re curious, you may start by checking the IMDB list I opened last February with my students in the MA ‘Theatre Studies’ (UAB). Here it is: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls076798996/. I mean, rather, the poorly understood transition from the 19th century technologies…

  • TRAVELLERS AND PLANNERS: TWO STYLES IN FABULATION

    I am going to sound sillier than usual in this post but I keep wondering these days why there is no research on how writers fabulate. Yes, I am aware that I am most likely misusing the word. See below. I’m working on Black Man, an SF novel by British writer Richard K. Morgan and…

  • CERCAS, HERNÁNDEZ DE MIGUEL AND MAUTHAUSEN: THE LIMITED USE OF THE NOVEL (FICTION OR NON-FICTION…)

    Knowing about my recurrent interest in the Holocaust, my family gave me as Sant Jordi presents two closely related books: Javier Cercas’ non-fiction novel El impostor (2014) and Carlos Hernández de Miguel non-fiction essay Los últimos españoles de Mauthausen (2015). I have read them back-to-back, half by chance and half on purpose and the result…