When we started working on the new 2021 syllabus, my Literature colleagues and I came to the conclusion that our students have too little contact with the contemporary world. Our undergrads take in the first year an Introduction to English Literature, which basically covers the British and Irish 20th century, beginning with James Joyce’s “The […]
Memory is a funny thing. I have been digging into my CV to prepare this post and what I have found does not quite match my recollections. I was under the impression that I have been teaching Victorian Literature every year since I was hired in 1991, except the year that I spent in Scotland […]
When the new Head of Department was appointed back in February 2023, we also appointed informally a ‘party planning committee’, constituted by two of my colleagues and myself. Perhaps you are part of that kind of Department in which people meet regularly for coffee breaks and lunch, and after hours for drinks, meals, or partying, […]
It’s been six weeks since I last wrote in this blog, the longest break I have taken since I started it back in 2010 and, hence, a cause for reflection on time and tiredness. In these weeks I have seriously considered closing down the blog, fearing that I simply have no time for it. A […]
I have just marked 70 paper proposals that my second-year Victorian Literature students have submitted and since the feedback I need to offer might be useful beyond my class, I’m offering it here as a sort of open tutorial. In our English Studies BA we start using secondary sources in the first year, but […]
A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of helping to consolidate the academic career of a brilliant young scholar, Pablo Gómez Muñoz, whose excellent volume Science Fiction Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Futures, Cosmopolitan Concerns (Routledge, 2023), I earnestly recommend. Pablo, who has been working for some years now at the Universidad […]
Today I’m writing a sort of metablogging post, for two reasons: I wish to comment on my most recent book, Passionate Professing: The Context and Practice of Teaching Literature, which contains a selection of posts published here, and I have just been invited to write an article on the experience of writing this blog for […]
This week we have held in my Department the 10th TELLC (Teaching English Language, Literature and Culture) workshop. This yearly meeting, which I set up after my time as BA Coordinator and still run, is aimed at discussing our experiences as teachers in all the areas and degrees of the Department. The presentations are supposed […]
I take my inspiration for this post from an article by Belén de Marcos for 20 Minutos, of 31st December: “La crisis ‘postcarrera,’ una realidad que sufren muchos jóvenes” (“The ‘post-degree’ crisis, a reality many young persons suffer”). The article has a curious subtitle, a quote from one of the persons interviewed: “Te hacen creer […]
The conversation around students’ manifest absence from the classroom has been making louder noises this month, when diverse reports have been issued. In The Times Higher Education, Paul Basken announced on December 6 that “Class attendance in US universities [is] ‘at record low’” due to “online hype, mental stress, adjunct reliance and job-centric mindsets.” Academics, […]