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)).

  • ON COPYRIGHT, VIRTUAL CAMPUS, CEDRO AND HARVARD

    CEDRO is the Spanish organisation that protects the copyright of writers on books (and music scores, I mean sheet music); it is analogous to SGAE, which protects performing artists. Recently, CEDRO has sued UAB for 1 million euros, accusing my university of not restricting at all book piracy in our virtual classrooms (see http://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20120411/54283660307/cedro-uab-fotocopias.html). They…

  • ‘IN THE VERY FIRST ROW OF THE SECOND-RATERS’: READING W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S OF HUMAN BONDAGE

    I have spent much of my time this long weekend glued to the 600 pages of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (1915). I picked up the yellowing, crumbling copy at UAB’s library to read for pleasure, after having read a while ago The Razor’s Edge (1944) –and yes, having seen the two film versions,…

  • BY DECREE: THE NEW TEACHING WORKLOAD

    Last Saturday, 21 April, the Spanish Government issued a new decree (see BOE http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2012/04/21/pdfs/BOE-A-2012-5337.pdf), cheerfully called “de medidas urgentes de racionalización del gasto público en el ámbito educativo.” According to this decree, although university teachers are still supposed to teach 24 ECTS credits a year (= 4 semestral subjects), this workload may be increased or…

  • ON THE DAY I READ COROLIANUS…FEES WENT UP BY 66%

    Last Sunday I went to see Alex Rigola’s production of Corolianus at Lliure. It was the first time I saw a Shakespeare without first reading the play but even so I could guess that something was very wrong as the performance only lasted for 75 minutes. The guy who appeared to be Corolianus’s main rival,…

  • CHOOSING A BOOK (FOR A LITERATURE TEACHER): HERE COMES SANT JORDI…

    Next Monday is every Literature teacher’s favourite holiday (it is, isn’t it?): Sant Jordi’s –book day here in Catalonia. Holiday not in the sense that we Catalans don’t work on that day, but in the sense that civil society takes the streets to celebrate reading –or so claim the authorities on popular Catalan festivities. For…