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)).

  • MORE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ANN LECKIE’S ANCILLARY JUSTICE TRILOGY AND MARJORIE PRIME

    Barcelona hosts this week the Mobile World Congress, which means that news about technology will dominate the media for a few days (leaving absurd politics aside). For the last two years, the congress has been preceded by the Mobile Week BCN (http://mobileweekbcn.com/es/), which has presented a dense programme of events (talks, workshops, performances, etc)… in…

  • THINKING OF MARY SHELLEY AND FRANKENSTEIN: MAKING HUMANS

    In one of the most eccentric episodes of The X-Files, “Post-modern Prometheus” (5×06), Mulder and Scully visit Dr. Polidori, a geneticist working at his own home lab in a rural location in the heart of the United States. The two FBI agents are investigating a series of attacks against women who have been drugged, raped…

  • THE RETURN OF THE GENTLEMAN: A PROPOSAL

    I taught yesterday an MA seminar on my research, mixing Cultural Studies and Gender Studies. I gave examples of the work I have done within the area I specialize in: Masculinities Studies (and popular fictions). As happens, the aspect of my research that generated the greatest discord was my proposal that we bring back gentlemanliness…

  • MOUNTING HYPOCRISY AND THE FEMINIST TURNIP FIELD

    Last Saturday the Spanish Academy of Cinema honoured the best films produced in 2017 with its Goya Awards. The attendants were offered a red fan decorated with the hashtag #+Mujeres, intended to demand that more women are hired by the Spanish film industry in all its sectors, not just acting. Apparently, some attendees (including women…

  • THE RISK OF REDISCOVERING THE ACADEMIC WHEEL (AND THE HANDMAID’S TALE)

    The students in my Gender Studies class could freely choose the subject of their paper and I have ended up marking five (out of twenty-five) on Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). In parallel, I have been asked to peer-review two articles submitted to journals on the same topic. Even a proposal for a…