One of my UOC students has the kindness of emailing me a message of thanks for my patience and efficiency –I hope this doesn’t sound too smug– and I feel a knot in my throat. The message comes at the right time, for I have spent a good two hours over lunch commiserating with a […]
When preparing a new subject what is usually a free-time activity for fun suddenly becomes work. I’m now reading non-stop for a subject on Contemporary British Drama (1980s-2000s), which I haven’t taught in a long time and truly look forward to teaching this second semester, and, so, now attending any play means work, yes, even […]
Second posting in a day, yes, I have the urge today. Here’s Spain for you: there were two news items yesterday worth contrasting. On the one hand, a report by the European Commission revealed that in Spain 31.2% of the 18-24 age segment abandon their secondary education studies. The European average is just 14%, high […]
There’s a little bit of irony in the title of my blog but also a little bit of despair, as you can see from many of my postings, about the sad fact that teaching is not always as joyful as it should be. Yet, this is exactly what it is when it works well, joyful […]
Yes, I’m still marking students’ exercises, no teaching to do, which means I’m reading for pleasure texts I needn’t prepare for class. This time it’s been the turn of Gilles Lipovetsky’s simply excellent La felicidad paradójica (2006), which I picked up because a colleague in my research group (‘Body and Textuality,’ beautifully coordinated by Meri […]
An unexpected blessing of commuting by train to the UAB is that I get one hour a day for reading what I please. As I always carry a heavy bag and I still don’t have an e-book reader, I’m becoming an expert at choosing the slimmest, juiciest possible books (mostly from my local library, the […]
First posting of the new year: happy 2011! I don’t wish to turn this blog into a space for reviewing but, as happens, I’ve been reading Vargas Llosa’s El sueño del celta (2010) and I do feel the need to vent my deep disappointment. You may recall from a recent post that I recommended this […]
A very dear ex-student, Cristina Delgado, emails me a photo in which she appears sitting on the ground in the middle of the street with her boyfriend, surrounded by an impressive human wall made up of police agents. Both are doctoral students in England, just two among the many thousands forced to take the streets […]
A very dear Department colleague, Mia Victori, passed away early this week, on November 29, the victim of an unexpected, massive stroke. She was only 44, and died while enjoying with her children and her sister a long-wished for sabbatical in California. We are all devastated, groping in the dark for clues that allow us […]
“What happened to essential books?,” Rick Gekoski wonders, recalling with candid nostalgia an ideal 1974 when everyone had read the 21 books in his list, at least everyone he knew at Oxford (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/oct/22/essential-books, thanks to Laura Gimeno for the link). What’s happened is statistics, for now there’s so much of everything and so many […]