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)).

  • TOWARDS A BOOKLESS SOCIETY?: MUSINGS FROM JURASSIC PARK

    I have shared in class with my students the article by Gaby Hinsliff’s “I Fear Books Are Going the Way of Vinyl Records – A Rarefied Pursuit for Hobbyists” published in The Guardian a couple of months ago. This article begins as the typical piece on summer reading to take then a turn towards the…

  •  ¿HACIA UNA SOCIEDAD SIN LIBROS?: REFLEXIONES DESDE EL PARQUE JURÁSICO

    He compartido en clase con mis estudiantes el artículo de Gaby Hinsliff “I Fear Books Are Going the Way of Vinyl Records – A Rarefied Pursuit for Hobbyists” publicado en The Guardian hace un par de meses. Este artículo comienza como la típica pieza sobre las lecturas de verano para luego dar un giro hacia…

  • THE LAYERS OF THE CONTEMPORARY

    I’m writing today in the hopes of better developing an idea I didn’t have time to expand on in class yesterday. I have been thinking about the meaning of the ‘contemporary’, both in the sense of how we consume books and which layers (I will explain) compose the totality of books at our disposal.            …

  • LAS CAPAS DE LO CONTEMPORÁNEO

    Escribo hoy con la esperanza de explicar mejor una idea que no tuve tiempo de desarrollar en clase ayer. He estado pensando en el significado de lo ‘contemporáneo’, tanto en el sentido de cómo consumimos libros como en qué capas (como explicaré) componen la totalidad de los libros a nuestra disposición.             La forma en…

  • HOW BOOK REVIEWS WORK: SOME EXAMPLES

    It turns out I have published 30 reviews, all of them of academic books, and I have two more about to be issued, which amounts more or less to one per year on average in the 33 years I have been an academic.             For me, the most memorable for me is, no doubt, my…