THE JOYS OF TEACHING LITERATURE VOLUME 10: September 2019-August 2020 Sara Martín Alegre Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2020 Contents 2 September 2019 / ‘READ, READ, READ AND THEN WHAT?’: GOOD QUESTION… ........ 1 9 September 2019 / THE DANCE OF TIME: ONE STEP FORWARD, THREE SIDEWAYS, ALWAYS RUNNING BEHIND .............................................................................................. 3 17 September 2019 / WHEN DID THE FUTURE DIE? SCATTERED THOUGHTS ON PALEOFUTURISM AND UTOPIA ........................................................................................ 6 24 September 2019 / TIME AND J.B. PRIESTLEY: I HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE ................. 9 1 October 2019 / LIKE WRITING A MUSICAL SCORE: THE UNACKNOWLEDGED TASK OF THE SCREENWRITER ....................................................................................................... 12 8 October 2019 / A VISIT TO THE LIBRARY: THE SAD LOOK OF YELLOWING BOOKS ..... 16 22 October 2019 / LUNCH WITH A WRITER: NECESSARY ENCOUNTERS ....................... 19 29 October 2019 / WHAT AN UGLY IMAGINATION IS ABOUT (TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF MY OWN IDEAS) ........................................................................................................ 21 4 November 2019 / IN SEARCH OF CHIVALRY: WALTER SCOTT’S IVANHOE .................. 24 12 November 2019 / THE COMPLEX MATTER OF CULTURAL APPROPRIATION (WITH THOUGHTS ON THE NATIVE AMERICAN CASE) .............................................................. 28 19 November 2019 / WOMEN’S PATRIARCHAL COMPLICITY: ABANDONING THE AREA BEHIND THE SCENES ....................................................................................................... 31 25 November 2019 / WORKING ON EMPATHY ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: “IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR DAUGHTER” .................................................................................................................... 34 3 December 2019 / CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL: PATRIARCHAL SYNERGY AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PRIVILEGED SURVIVAL ...................................................................... 37 16 December 2019 / MARY SHELLEY’S (HIDEOUS) FILM PROGENY: A LEGACY IN NEED OF RENOVATION .................................................................................................................. 40 13 January 2020 / THE ELUSIVE MATTER OF THE IMAGINATION: TOO FRAIL TO TOUCH? ........................................................................................................................................ 44 20 January 2020 / WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CLOSE READING?: A CALL TO BRING BACK TEXTUAL ANALYSIS INTO LITERARY CRITICISM (AND PLOT SUMMARY) ........................ 47 30 January 2020 / TEACHING THE CONTEMPORARY: CHALLENGES AND METHODS .... 50 3 February 2020 / WRITING A PHD DISSERTATION: AN EXERCISE IN RESILIENCE ......... 53 10 February 2020 / THE END OF LITERARY CRITICISM?: ON GEORGE STEINER’S PASSING ........................................................................................................................................ 56 17 February 2020 / “WE ARE ALL MARXIST”: A CONVERSATION WITH TERRY EAGLETON ........................................................................................................................................ 59 25 February 2020 / WHERE ARE MEN’S ROLE MODELS?: AN URGENT CALL ................. 62 3 March 2020 / HOW ENTITLEMENT AND VILLAINY CONNECT (AS I EXPLAIN IN MASCULINITY AND PATRIARCHAL VILLAINY: FROM HITLER TO VOLDEMORT) .............. 65 15 March 2020 / AS WE DEAL WITH THE ALIEN INVASION: GREAT DOCUMENTARIES TO ENJOY DURING QUARANTINE (I) .................................................................................... 69 21 March 2020 / AS WE DEAL WITH THE ALIEN INVASION: GREAT PRE-21ST CENTURY DOCUMENTARIES TO ENJOY DURING QUARANTINE (1895-1965) ................................ 73 29 March 2020 / AS WE DEAL WITH THE ALIEN INVASION: GREAT PRE-21ST CENTURY DOCUMENTARIES TO ENJOY DURING QUARANTINE (1966- 1996) ............................... 77 7 April 2020 / TIGER KING, WHAT ELSE?: THE VIEW INSIDE AND OUTSIDE AMERICA .. 81 19 April 2020 / AS WE DEAL WITH THE ALIEN INVASION: MORE GREAT DOCUMENTARIES TO ENJOY DURING QUARANTINE (2000-2020) .............................................................. 85 27 April 2020 / COMBATING SPIRITUAL NUMBNESS: COVID-19 AND THE NEED FOR UTOPIA ............................................................................................................................ 89 3 May 2020 / SUPPOSING REASEARCH MATTERS: A BAD AND A GOOD EXAMPLE OF LITERARY INVESTIGATION .............................................................................................. 92 10 May 2020 / LEST WE FORGET: THE 1980s AIDS CRISIS AND RANDY SHILTS’S AND THE BAND PLAYED ON ........................................................................................................... 95 19 May 2020 / HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY AND PATRIARCHY: POINTS OF CONTACT .. 99 25 May 2020 / HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY AND PATRIARCHY: CONSENT AND COERCION, OR STELLA AND BLANCHE IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE ........................................ 102 1 June 2020 / THINKING OF THE NEXT ACADEMIC YEAR UNDER THE SHADOW OF COVID- 19: A TIME TO RECONSIDER WHAT WE DO AS TEACHERS ........................................... 105 15 June 2020 / SCARLETT AND THE STATUE: WHY SUPPRESSION IS NOT EDUCATION109 3 July 2020 / CAREER BLOCKERS AND BLOCKED MEN: ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE, AND THE MEN HOLDING BAGS .................................................................................................... 112 10 July 2020 / MY FAVOURITE SCREEN PLAYWRIGHT IS…: CONSIDERING OUR COLLECTIVE NEGLECT OF SCREENWRITING ................................................................. 115 13 July 2020 / ON GOOD BOYS AND LADS (AND FROZEN’S KRISTOFF) ........................ 118 20 July 2020 / ON BULLIES AND NERDS: READING PIXAR’S BOY STORIES ................... 121 27 July 2020 / THE STRAIGHT WHITE MALE STRIKES AGAIN (AND IS STRUCK…) ......... 124 4 August 2020 / (MIS)ADVENTURES IN (MIS)CASTING: VISUALISING CHARACTERS ... 128 10 August 2020 / DON’T WE MEAN MAMMALS WHEN WE SAY ANIMALS? READING SHERRYL VINT’S ANIMAL ALTERITY: SCIENCE FICTION AND THE QUESTION OF THE ANIMAL ......................................................................................................................... 131 24 August 2020 / DISMANTLING PATRIARCHY: RONAN FARROW’S CATCH AND KILL, AGAINST THE TIDE ........................................................................................................ 134 31 August 2020 / THE MEANING OF HARRISON FORD: STARDOM AND MASCULINITY ...................................................................................................................................... 137 CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE/LICENCIA .................................................................... 141 PLEASE, NOTE: These are the posts published in my blog The Joys of Teaching Literature (blogs.uab.cat/saramartinalegre/, since September 2010) between September 2019 and August 2020. The nine previous volumes are also available from http://ddd.uab.cat/record/116328. Sara Martín Alegre, Barcelona, August 2020 [email protected] gent.uab.cat/saramartinalegre @SaraMartinUAB 2 September 2019 / ‘READ, READ, READ AND THEN WHAT?’: GOOD QUESTION… I’m beginning with this post the tenth year of this blog, started back in September 2010, with a certain feeling that blogging is already a thing of the past. As the yearly volumes accumulate (check https://ddd.uab.cat/record/116328), I see how text-based online platforms give way to image-based platforms, with Instagram in the lead, already replacing Twitter in everyone’s preferences (the micro-blogging Tumblr is quite dead). I don’t know who reads me, or how many of you there are, for I refuse to check my statistics, and anyway, I keep this blog for my own personal satisfaction (and sanity). Whoever you are, you do get my most deeply felt thanks! One more thing: I’m teaching only one semester a year, thanks to my university’s fair and legal application of the 2012 Government decree to support research (popularly known as ‘Decreto Wert’). This is the reason why the blog offers currently fewer posts about teaching and more about reading (and writing). I have even considered altering the title, but I’ll let it be, though I think of it today as ‘The Joys of (Teaching) Literature’, still with the ironic sting in the tail. Let’s begin. Reading this summer Susan Orlean’s non-fiction bestseller The Library Book (a beguiling account of the devastating fire at the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986), I was oddly impressed by a small scene. Incidentally, you may watch Orlean’s interview with Bel Olid on The Library Book at Barcelona’s recent Kosmopolis (last March) here: https://www.cccb.org/en/multimedia/videos/susan-orlean-and-bel- olid/231171. In the scene mentioned, Orlean meets a worker (a black middle-aged woman, though this is not much relevant), who spends eight hours a day packing and unpacking books. She tells a flabbergasted Orlean that she never reads any books for you ‘read, read, and read, and then what?’ This woman’s dismissal of reading caught me in the middle of an intense summer reading binge and truly shook me. What, indeed, am I doing reading so much? Even my fellow Literature teachers tell me that I read a lot… because, guess what?, even they prefer watching TV series, which I find unbearably boring. You ‘watch,