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)).

  • ENJOYING IAIN (M.) BANKS TO THE LAST: A SAD ANNOUNCEMENT

    I was planning to make something special of my posting number 200 but the unexpected has taken me over. Completely. Today I have sent an abstract for a paper on Iain M. Banks’s The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), a novel I have discussed here (see 1-XI-2012, LET’S SUBLIME: A POLITICAL READING FOR THE HYDROGEN SONATA). The…

  • THOSE BICEPS, OH MY GOD!: WHAT SOME STUDENTS VALUE IN TEACHERS (HOPEFULLY JUST A FEW)

    A very good-looking male friend of mine from a Southern Spanish university tells me that, to his deep chagrin and mortification, a student (male or female he doesn’t know), mentioned his biceps –oh my God!– as the strongest point of the English Studies BA degree for which he teaches. (Yes, we teachers gossip all the…

  • THE MATTER OF MONEY (AND THE WEATHER): MORE ON MOBILITY

    My previous post (sorry it was so long) leads to this second post on teacher mobility, also connected with the Wert report. El Diario Montañés, published an article on 24 February with the title “Rector UAB: el sueldo de los docentes es poco competitivo para atraer talento” (http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/agencias/20130224/mas-actualidad/sociedad/rector-uab-sueldo-docentes-poco_201302241101.html). In this article, Ferran Sancho, interviewed by…

  • APPLYING CULTURAL STUDIES TO OUR LOCAL UNIVERSITIES: IT’S URGENT

    APPLYING CULTURAL STUDIES TO OUR LOCAL UNIVERSITIES: IT’S URGENT [In case you’re wondering, yes, two posts today – I haven’t been writing much recently and the ideas pile up…] I’m going to refer here again to the 84-page report that a committee of professors submitted last 15 February to Minister Wert, for the reform of…

  • YET ANOTHER STRIKE…

    Exactly a year ago tomorrow I published a post called ‘A Striking Strike’ as we, students and teachers, were also on strike, like today. I wrote then and I repeat now that I’m not joining the strike as (I’m quoting myself): “a) my not teaching students for one day does not bother anyone, [much less…