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 from https://ddd.uab.cat/record/116328, 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)).

  • CELEBRATING BRITISH DEMOCRACY: TOWARDS A NEW UNITED KINGDOM

    It is always thrilling to witness a key historical moment, and today it is one. The results of the Scottish referendum on independence mark, as many political commentators have noted, a decisive turning point in the History of the United Kingdom, which will have to revise urgently the conditions of the union (including, most likely,…

  • THE USE OF TIMELINES: ABOUT PRODUCING ONE (ON WOMEN AND FEMINISM IN SPAIN)

    I am very fond of timelines. I find that one of the problems of the post-traditional model of education is that it has condemned memorizing as a useless nuisance. This leads to a great deal of imprecision regarding exact historical dates, which in its turn produces a hazy impression of historical periods. Without learning particular…

  • WHAT WOULD PROSPERO SAY?: GIVING BOOKS AWAY

    Last year a lecturer from a Scottish university, where I’d been a doctoral student, emailed me after more than a decade without contact. She explained to me that she was retiring (to Mallorca) and looking for a home for her collection of books on Gothic. Would the UAB be interested? Oh, my!, I thought, but…

  • WHEN STUDENTS MUST BE EXPELLED (OR, WHEN MUST STUDENTS BE EXPELLED?)

    I have chosen a very tricky topic for this, my 300th post, inspired by an article in El País, entitled “La Universidad expulsa a 30.000 alumnos al año por rendir poco” (http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/08/27/actualidad/1409163082_894501.html). I don’t know what to make of the word ‘expels’ in this headline, as I connect it with inadmissible behaviour. I would have…

  • 60 HOURS: WATCHING A TV SERIES (AND WHY IT IS NOT WORTH IT)

    In 2006 I published a monographic volume on The X-Files, entitled Expediente X: En honor a la verdad. I am practically certain that I was the first person in Spain to attempt to cover a whole TV series in a book with the intention of offering an in-depth analysis (accessible to the general readership) rather…