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)).

  • A CALCULATING WOMAN: PLANNING NEXT YEAR’S SCHEDULE

    One of the main tasks I must fulfil as BA Coordinator is planning the schedule for next year. Calculations used to be simple: 1 credit was the equivalent of 10 teaching hours and, so, a full time, tenured teacher was supposed to teach 24 credits, 240 hours. My contract specifies that I work 37,5 hours…

  • THE WAND CHOOSES THE WITCH: A STORY FOR POTTERHEADS

    If you’re not a Potterhead and if you find the idea of buying movie-related merchandise absurd, you will find what I’m going to narrate here simply silly. If you are a Potterhead, I’m sure you will love it… When I started teaching the Harry Potter elective and about two thirds of my class declared they…

  • THE MANY LIVES OF THE ARTFUL DODGER

    I have finally read Terry Pratchett’s Dodger (2012), a novel oddly marketed as young adult fiction and, yes, closely related to Dickens’ Oliver Twist. I was going to write a post specifically on it but, when checking Wikipedia for more information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodger_(novel)), I’ve come across a strange literary phenomenon: the recent resurrection of Jack Dawkins,…

  • THE CLAPTRAP, I MEAN THE MOUSETRAP: IS THIS THE ULTIMATE POST-MODERN JOKE?

    Last evening I saw ‘La ratonera’ at Teatre Apolo, here in Barcelona, the Spanish translation of Agatha Christie’s very famous The Mousetrap. I am really mystified that this absolutely mediocre play, to call it something polite, is still on 62 years after its opening night. That is the real mystery and not what the plot…

  • THE WARRIOR AND THE CIVIL/CIVIC NARRATIVES OF MASCULINITY AND WHY HARRY POTTER’S SUCH AN UNCOMMON HERO

    One doesn’t read doctoral dissertations for pleasure, I’m sorry to say, but I have very much enjoyed reading Linda Wight’s Talking about Men: Conversations about Masculinities in Recent ‘Gender-bending’ Science Fiction (2009, http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/11566/1/02whole.pdf). She had the very good idea of taking a selection of winners and nominees to the James Tiptree Jr., a prize awarded…