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)).

  • CANCIONES DE SUPERVIVENCIA: LOS HOMBRES EN LA MÚSICA POPULAR DEL SIGLO XXI

    Hoy estoy celebrando la publicación del undécimo libro que he editado con los trabajos de mis estudiantes de Grado y Máster. Me refiero a Songs of Survival: Men in 21st Century Popular Music, escrito por los estudiantes del máster Advanced English Studies de la UAB matriculados en la asignatura optativa ‘Gender Studies’. Hace dos años…

  • AMERICAN MASCULINITIES IN CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTARY FILM: UP CLOSE BEHIND THE MASK

    This post has the same title as the last book I have published, my second monograph in English. It came out a few weeks ago and will be followed this Autumn by my own translation into Spanish, Detrás de la mascara: masculinidades americanas en el documental contemporáneo (U València). Curiously, Anglophone publishers prefer the less…

  • ABOUT A RETIREMENT: HOMAGE TO FELICITY HAND

    [Just a brief note to say that I have been missing in action for three weeks totally snowed under an avalanche of exercises and papers. I could have written once more about the pains of marking, but I find it gives me no relief from the frustration of realizing that the students who fail are…

  • SOBRE UNA JUBILACIÓN: HOMENAJE A FELICITY HAND

    [Solo una breve nota para decir que he estado desaparecida en acción durante tres semanas totalmente sepultada bajo una avalancha de exámenes y trabajos. Podría haber escrito una vez más sobre lo doloroso que es evaluar, pero encuentro que no me alivia la frustración de darme cuenta de que los estudiantes que supenden son los…

  • DRACULA AS AN X-FILE: FROM SCIENCE TO PSEUDOSCIENCE (OR WORSE)

    I am teaching Stoker’s novel Dracula as I work on the second edition of my book on The X-Files (Expediente X: en honor a la verdad) which should be published at some point next Autumn, coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of the series’ launch in 1993. The episodes in The X-Files on vampirism (“3” and…