Performative Professor: "Just Call Me Shawn"

With the majority of students already buckling under the demands of the University of Toronto’s infamous workload, many instructors are looking for ways to recapture the attention of their disillusioned pupils, a task that is proving increasingly difficult as the semester progresses. 

While some have risen to the occasion, one professor has gone to great lengths to make a positive impression on his students. Professor Shawn Sallinger recently revealed his new outlook on masculinity to the students in his second-year anthropology course, according to sophomore student Kai Elliott. “It was really weird. After he started the lecture by telling us to ‘just call him Shawn’ since ‘Professor Sallinger is totally elitist and divisive and also classist,’ he then kept going on about his love for listening to unreleased Lana Del Rey songs during long walks in Queen’s Park and playing Stardew Valley.” Elliott also noted that “Shawn” repeatedly emphasized his love for Wuthering Heights, The Colour Purple, and “every piece of feminist literature in the history of the written word” without any context. “It was very strange. He is totally different from last year. He used to only talk about hockey and energy drinks. Now I’m supposed to believe that he owns a record player and has opinions on Love Island? It feels superficial, like he’s only doing it to make us like him. Performative, even. Literally none of this is on the syllabus.” 

When asked by our correspondent about his sudden rebrand, “Shawn” dismissed the “baseless and insulting” claims that he is artificially curating his persona so people like him.  He stated that his interests “can’t be performative if they’re an authentic representation of the self” while logging Greta Gerwig’s critically-acclaimed film Ladybird on Letterboxd.

At press time, Elliott adds that “Shawn” asked her to drink matcha and listen to Clairo on vinyl while admiring his Labubu collection in the comfort of his office after the lecture.