CHILDREN IN CINEMA:  A NEW SUBJECT

I started three weeks ago a new MA subject on children in Anglophone cinema, under the umbrella label Gender Studies. This is a continuation of a subject I taught three years ago, which resulted in the publication of the e-book by the students Gender in 21st Century Animated Children’s Cinema (check please my post on […]

THAT BAD WITCH: BELLATRIX BLACK LESTRANGE

Continuing with the topic of my previous post, and because I have been preparing a talk about her, I’d like to focus here on a truly bad witch: Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Bellatrix has been the object of a few scholarly publications, none devoted to her alone (all to be found on Google Scholar; the MLA […]

OF FAIRIES AND WITCHES: AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY

My doctoral student Laura Luque is now giving the finishing touches to her excellent PhD dissertation on the positive representation of the witch as a figure of empowerment in contemporary YA fantasy literature. She has focused on Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Rin Chupeco and Kelley Armstrong, which is certainly enough, although as the lists in […]

KEN LEARNS ABOUT THE PATRIARCHY: KENOUGH MIGHT NOT BE KENOUGH

[WARNING: This post discusses the movie Barbie with spoilers] It’s been a week since Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie was released and the internet is abuzz with comments of all sizes and types. Surely, mine is not needed but, as happens, the more I think about the movie, the more restless I get. I was delighted […]

The Posthuman Patriarchal Villain as Absolute Future Threat: Winston Duarte (and the hero James Holden) in The Expanse novel series

SPOILERS WARNING: This post deals with the nine Expanse novels and discusses the series’ ending. The Expanse is a series of nine space opera novels—Leviathan Wakes (2011), Caliban’s War (2012), Abaddon’s Gate (2013), Cibola Burn (2014), Nemesis Games (2015), Babylon’s Ashes (2016), Persepolis Rising (2017), Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) and Leviathan Falls (2021)—accompanied by a short […]

AGEING MEN IN ACTION CINEMA: A DYING BREED WITH NO REPLACEMENT

My post today is inspired by Daniel Soufi’s article for El País “Salvar el mundo por no jubilarse: los héroes de más de 60 años llenan las pantallas de cine” [Saving the World to Avoid Retirement: Over-60 Heroes Fill the Cinema Screens]. Soufi wonders why ageing male actors are still playing action heroes and names […]

READING JAN MORRIS’S CONUMDRUM (1972): THOUGHTS ON CISGENDERISM

Writing about transgenderism being a cisgender person is always complicated and a potential minefield. Today (22 December), however, the Spanish Parliament will presumably pass the new “Ley para la igualdad real y efectiva de las personas trans y para la garantía de los derechos de las personas LGTBI”, simply known as “Ley Trans”, which Minister […]

READING A LONG NOVEL SERIES (FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES): THE EXPANSE

I’m returning to James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse, which I discussed two posts ago, this time to reflect on the strategies required to face such a long read for academic purposes.             Whereas mainstream and literary novels are usually published as stand-alone volumes, series abound in genre fiction. They are sometimes bound by the presence […]