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)).

  • THINKING WITH PROF. JOHN CAREY (I): WHY WE SHOULD READ LITERATURE

    One of my colleagues has just retired and among the many books of his extensive library that he has given away (for that’s what happens with the books we store in our offices) I have rescued John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? (Faber & Faber, 2005). I have very fond memories of reading Carey’s…

  •  PENSANDO CON EL PROF. JOHN CAREY (I): POR QUÉ DEBERÍAMOS LEER LITERATURA

    Uno de mis colegas se acaba de jubilar y entre los muchos libros de su extensa biblioteca que ha acabado regalando (porque eso es lo que pasa con los libros que acumulamos en nuestros despachos) he rescatado What Good Are the Arts? (Faber y Faber, 2005; ¿De qué sirven las artes?, Debate, 2007). Tengo muy…

  • WHEN SHOULD YOU SEND YOUR CHILD ABROAD TO LEARN ENGLISH? (AND WHY?)

    Today’s post is my reaction to the new article “‘The Experiential Learning of English’: Discourses of Catalan Families on Teenage Educational Mobility Abroad” (originally published in Catalan as “‘L’aprenentatge vital de l’anglès’: els discursos de famílies catalanes sobre la mobilitat educativa adolescent a l’estranger”; Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana 34 (2024): 13-29). The authors are my…

  •  ¿CUÁNDO DEBERÍAS ENVIAR A TU HIJO AL EXTRANJERO PARA APRENDER INGLÉS? (¿Y POR QUÉ?)

    La entrada de hoy es mi reacción al nuevo artículo “‘The Experiential Learning of English’: Discourses of Catalan Families on Teenage Educational Mobility Abroad” (publicado originalmente en catalán como “‘L’aprenentatge vital de l’anglès’: els discursos de les famílies catalanes sobre la mobilitat educativa adolescent a l’estranger”; Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana 34 (2024): 13-29). Las autoras…

  •  FROM MICHIKO KAKUTANI TO EMILY MAY: OF DETHRONED QUEENS

    I was going to write about my increasingly worrying addiction to GoodReads. In the end, though, this has become a post about the deprofessionalization of book reviewing, based on a consideration of the very diverse influence of reviewers Michiko Kakutani and Emily May, the former a stalwart of The New York Times and the latter…