{"id":5650,"date":"2025-05-15T21:04:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=5650"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:04:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:35","slug":"staff-confessions-literary-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2025\/05\/staff-confessions-literary-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Confessions: Literary Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image<\/strong>: \u00a9 Pixabay License. Source<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We asked the staff to confess their most questionable literary habits \u2014 no names attached, no reputations harmed. From unread masterpieces to opinions that could cause minor academic riots, they did not hold back. We\u2019ll keep their identities safe\u2026 unless, of course, you\u2019re good at guessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous 1 :\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous 2: \ud83d\udee1\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous 3: \ud83e\udd8a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous 4: \ud83e\udde8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous 5: \ud83e\uddf3<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One book I pretended to read (but didn\u2019t)<\/strong>: <\/em> Be honest\u2026 we\u2019ve all been there.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f Proust’s Recherche from beginning to end<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udee1\ufe0fThe Book of Mormon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd8a Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em>. A first year student came up to me after an ILA class, trembling with enthusiasm over Gibbon and I didn’t have the heart to admit I hadn’t read Decline and Fall<\/em>. I think I just said, ‘wow, that’s impressive.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udde8 I plead the fifth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\uddf3 Joyce’s Ulysses<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hill I\u2019ll die on (literary edition):<\/em><\/strong> What\u2019s that one opinion you\u2019ll defend to your last breath?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f You must not discriminate on the ground of sex and sexuality, race, class, origin or physical difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udee1\ufe0fSamwise Gamgee is the true hero of Middle-earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd8a Reading Tolkien is not stupid (I have quite a few more if you want). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udde8 Audiobooks aren’t books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\uddf3 We need a different approach to our bodies: “My body, my choice” has terrible blind spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A literary opinion that might get me fired:<\/strong> Time to spill the hot takes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f Run mad as often as you choose but do not faint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udee1\ufe0f Out of all the stories about Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/em> is the worst one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd8a The fox in Ted Hughes’s dream who told him that studying literature was killing him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udde8 Bad literature might have more cultural impact than good literature<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\uddf3 Gosh, I can’t think of one … does this institution care so much about literary opinions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where would you absolutely perish \u2014 Regency England?<\/strong>  Pick your doom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0fThe nineteenth century with its scientific definition of race and gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udee1\ufe0fThe Middle Ages<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd8a The future in which everybody hands in AI-generated essays, and people only talk on ZOOM, but mostly they exchange photos on TikTok (hopefully, there are other futures possible). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udde8 The trenches of modernism wouldn’t have been kind to me. Or anything before penicillin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\uddf3 Definitely not Regency England… Modernism in South Africa?
<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: \u00a9 Pixabay License. Source We asked the staff to confess their most questionable literary habits \u2014 no names attached, no reputations harmed. From unread masterpieces to opinions that could cause minor academic riots, they did not hold back. We\u2019ll keep their identities safe\u2026 unless, of course, you\u2019re good at guessing. Anonymous 1 :\ud83c\udf2a\ufe0f Anonymous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002887,"featured_media":5653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[87],"class_list":{"0":"post-5650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-2025-spring","8":"tag-staff-confessions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002887"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5650"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5779,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5650\/revisions\/5779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}