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)).

  • READING AND SEEING, SEEING AND READING: A NOTE ON DOCUMENTARIES

    I love documentaries. Not nature documentaries, whether they are of the cute, cheesy variety or of the ultra realistic kind –which, for some reason or other, always include grisly scenes of bigger animals killing smaller animals. I mean culture documentary films. My second dream job after university teacher, is ‘documentary film maker’. (Actually this is…

  • DAENERYS AND ALL THE REST: ON READING/SEEING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN’S A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE (UM, OR IS IT A GAME OF THRONES?)

    Last Christmas holiday I published a post on the Harry Potter series which has led to my teaching next academic year an elective subject on Rowling’s dark yarn. Having enjoyed season one of TV series A Game of Thrones, I told myself that perhaps soon it should be the turn for George R. R. Martin’s…

  • 211%, OR THE MYSTERY OF HOW MANY HOURS I ACTUALLY TEACH

    I have just checked my personal teaching account, wondering whether hours I’m owed had been finally counted. Yes, whoever does this has entered the hours corresponding to my supervision of a PhD dissertation (or is it for two dissertations? I’m confused). Not yet, however, the 21 hours corresponding to the three BA dissertations submitted in…

  • WELCOMING OUR NEW STUDENTS: WHY MUM AND DAD SHOULD NOT BE THERE

    As the BA Coordinator, one of my duties is to welcome our new ‘English Studies’ students in a joint session before registration. Apart from helping them regarding choices they need to make on their registration form, I give them a few pointers about how to become successful university students. I have gone as far as…

  • ON THE NEW BA DISSERTATIONS (OR TFG): THE FIRST BATCH

    Our ever expanding academic duties have included this year the novelty of participating on the examining boards for the new BA dissertations or TFG (‘Treball de Fi de Grau’). July has thus yet another day of very hard work that, as usual, must be deducted from research and that delays the official date for the…