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)).

  • ON NOT TEACHING AS A REWARD: SOME SCATTERED THOUGHTS

    I came across a UAB colleague a few days ago, who had a good piece of news to announce: he’s been awarded a prestigious Catalan grant (ICREA Acadèmia), which will allow him to focus more intensely on his research for the next 5 years. I’m really impressed, for I am sure he must have faced…

  • TEACHING GENDER STUDIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY: A PREFACE TO GENDER AND FEMINISM: THE STUDENTS’ VIEW (2015)

    [I’m recycling here the Preface to the volume I have just edited, Gender and Feminism: The Students’ View, available from https://ddd.uab.cat/record/129180. Please, publicise it in your Twitter and Facebook, thanks] An awareness of gender differences begins very early in life as does little girls’ demand for equal treatment, even when the concept of ‘equal rights’…

  • INCREASINGLY RARE BOOKS OF THE RECENT PAST: READING NAOMI MITCHISON’S MEMOIRS OF A SPACEWOMAN (1962)

    Today I’m going simultaneously in two directions: I am demanding that Open Access policies be extended to the literary works of deceased authors, and I am praising a rare book (which has caused me to consider the matter of literary legacy). Let’s see if I can be minimally coherent. Books have this way of deciding…

  • ‘ATTENDING’ AN ONLINE CONFERENCE: A SATISFYING NEW EXPERIENCE

    My belief in the need to generate low-cost academic activity and improve networking is not always easy to implement. Possibly already 3 years ago I came up with the idea of organizing a virtual conference (on SF) but I got totally stuck because a) I had never participated in one and b) the two mathematicians…

  • 3+2 DOES NOT EQUAL 5: ON THE NEW DEGREE REFORM

    The Spanish Government has finally approved the ‘Real Decreto’ by which universities may choose to offer BAs of 3 or 4 years, accompanied by MAs of 2 or 1 year, respectively. Just yesterday, the CRUE (the organization gathering together the principals or ‘rectores’ of all Spanish universities), agreed to delay the revision of the degree…