I’m teaching this semester the core subject ‘Contemporary Anglophone Literature: 1990 to the Present’, which we introduced last year in the fourth year of our English Studies BA. I was presenting the introduction to the first unit, 1990-1997, with a survey of the main political, social, and technoscientific events, when I noticed that most persons […]
Today I’m using my post as an excuse to read an article titled “Against the Uncritical Adoption of ‘AI’ Technologies in Academia” by Olivia Guest and 18 other authors based mostly in the Netherlands. This text can be found in a pre-print repository (https://philarchive.org/rec/GUEATU) where it was filed on 7 September of the current year. […]
Duncan Yellowlees, PhD, (@dyellowlees.bsky.social), who presents himself as a researcher trainer, posted the following on BlueSky: “Practical tips for maintaining an engaged audience that sooo many academics fail at: – vary what they are listening to/focusing on – make sure data is connected to context – talk to them not at them – give the […]
This is a report of the ‘Vision and Support Session’, an open discussion held last week, on 30 July, within the Science Fiction Research Association conference, “Trans People are (in) the Future: Queer and Trans Futurity in Science Fiction” (University of Rochester, New York), a conference which lasted until yesterday, August 3rd. The organizer of […]
Today I’m reading an article by, I quote, “Mary Curnock Cook CBE, who chairs the Dyson Institute and is a Trustee at HEPI, and Bess Brennan, Chief of University Partnerships with Cadmus, which is running a series of collaborative events with UK university leaders about the challenges and opportunities of generative AI in higher education.” […]
2025 is turning out to be one of the worst years in my life as a reader, for two reasons. One is that I find it harder and harder to find novels that interest me, of any type. The other is that since Trump’s election, I’m spending at least two hours a day reading the […]
Five years ago today, on 13 March 2025, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez declared the state of emergency, in view of the alarming expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing Covid-19. Today, many other persons and media are considering the impact of the pandemic on our lives and, in particular, on education. I don’t have anything to […]
I was told yesterday that I must bear in mind that not all of our students agree with the left-wing political position I defend, as a feminist and a socialist, and that some actually support right-wing policies. This is hardly surprising if we take into account voting statistics and the growth of the extreme right […]
I have published this week not one but TWO books gathering works written by my students. As I have been narrating here, I started publishing students’ work back in 2013-14, when I edited two volumes on Harry Potter. I became then hooked on project-oriented teaching for BA and MA subjects, mostly electives, and these new […]
Citing Queen and the wonderful Freddy Mercury is always a good idea, though their song “A Kind of Magic” does not really refer to what I have in mind. Written by drummer Roger Taylor for the film Highlander in 1986, this song speaks of transcending time as the immortals in the movie’s fable do. However, […]