My colleagues in ‘20th century English Literature’ (first-year) and myself have decided to use one spare week that we programmed after the unit on British Poetry for songs. I opened a Forum for students to contribute songs that they found interesting because of the lyrics but since the messages are trickling rather than pouring down […]
A very good-looking male friend of mine from a Southern Spanish university tells me that, to his deep chagrin and mortification, a student (male or female he doesn’t know), mentioned his biceps –oh my God!– as the strongest point of the English Studies BA degree for which he teaches. (Yes, we teachers gossip all the […]
My previous post (sorry it was so long) leads to this second post on teacher mobility, also connected with the Wert report. El Diario Montañés, published an article on 24 February with the title “Rector UAB: el sueldo de los docentes es poco competitivo para atraer talento” (http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/agencias/20130224/mas-actualidad/sociedad/rector-uab-sueldo-docentes-poco_201302241101.html). In this article, Ferran Sancho, interviewed by […]
APPLYING CULTURAL STUDIES TO OUR LOCAL UNIVERSITIES: IT’S URGENT [In case you’re wondering, yes, two posts today – I haven’t been writing much recently and the ideas pile up…] I’m going to refer here again to the 84-page report that a committee of professors submitted last 15 February to Minister Wert, for the reform of […]
Exactly a year ago tomorrow I published a post called ‘A Striking Strike’ as we, students and teachers, were also on strike, like today. I wrote then and I repeat now that I’m not joining the strike as (I’m quoting myself): “a) my not teaching students for one day does not bother anyone, [much less […]
My colleague David Owen emails us, UAB’s English Literature Teachers, a juicy article from a Guardian blog: “Library lending figures: which books are most popular?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/feb/08/library-lending-figures-books-most-popular). The subheading cheerfully announces that “James Patterson leads the list of the UK’s most borrowed authors in 2011/12” –I had to think twice and end up using Wikipedia to […]
In order to break the ice and to get to know my new first year students I ask them to answer on the first day a brief questionnaire, which I’ll also answer here as if this were 1984, my first year at university: 1. Have you read a complete volume in English yet? (If so, […]
Yesterday I signed the document that makes my students’ final marks official. I very much wanted to put an end to the semester before classes begin again next week –this soon!! – even though we have two extra weeks to do so. It’s a kind of mental hygiene for me: something has to end before […]
Yesterday I watched on La Sexta Jordi Évole’s Salvados, this time a monographic on the Spanish schools in comparison to the best schools in the world: those of Finland (you can watch the whole programme, “Cuestión de educación”, at http://www.lasexta.com/programas/salvados/sobre-el-programa/). One of my doctoral students spent last year working there as a teacher and, so, […]
Before writing this post I have checked my other two posts, written in the same week of January, in 2011 and 2012. Yes, this is the time when I must mark the papers (1,200 words on average each, including abstract and bibliography) for Victorian Literature (second year, compulsory). This year there are 53, I’ve gone […]