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)).

  • (NOT) TRAINING STUDENTS FOR JOBS: EMPLOYABILITY, TEAMWORK, DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

    I’ll begin today with a semantic quibble about the presence of the word ‘Bachelor’ in the name of the degree ‘Bachelor of Arts’ or BA. Pop etymology indicates that the Medieval Latin word ‘baccalaureatus’ derives from Latin ‘baccalaureus’, a portmanteau of ‘bacca’ (berry) and ‘laurea’ (‘laurel’), because of the laurel crown awarded to graduates as…

  • TOWARDS LIBERATION FROM EMPOWERMENT

    I was watching last week the new wonder woman of Spanish music, Rosalía, in an interview on TV (in Pablo Motos’ El Hormiguero) and she confirmed that, indeed, her new recording, El mal querer, deals with ‘el poder femenino’ (I’m not sure whether she means female, women’s or feminine power). Rosalía herself is an example…

  • SLAP IN THE FACE, PUNCH IN THE GUTS (ON MACHIAVELLI AND TOLKIEN)

    I was recently re-reading Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532) in the elegant translation by Peter Bondanella (Oxford UP, 2008), when I came across this passage in ‘Chapter XXX: Of Fortune’s Power in Human Affairs and How She Can Be Resisted’: ‘I certainly believe this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune…

  • ENJOYING BIBLIOGRAPHY LIVE! (AND CALLING FOR THE RETURN OF CONVERSATION)

    Comparing the lists of works cited in pre-1990s bibliography and in recent academic publications, it is obvious that we are about to reach a critical turning point after which our secondary sources will overwhelm our writing. At least this is how I feel. There are, I think, two justifications for the use of quotations in…

  • ON PATRIARCHY AND CATALAN INDEPENDENCE

    I have been trying to avoid the thorny subject of Catalan independence here but the recent hullaballoo caused by the (supposed) misreading of Agustí Colominas’ words on a television interview last 17 October might be useful to offer an alternative, gendered interpretation of the self-styled ‘procés’. My personal political opinion is simple enough: Catalan independence…