How Should We Support Scholars Who Are Getting Harassed Online? Read Their Work.
E(i)ditorial — June 2017
It is a sad statement of our times that so many public-facing classicists now expect, almost as a matter of course, to receive abuse because of their work. This inevitability recently befell Sarah Bond, an Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa, prolific public scholar, and a friend.
The abuse leveled at Bond has received a fair amount of press — you can read about it here, here, here, and here — so I won’t recount the details. But I do want to address some of the larger issues around how I think members of the academy should respond to this kind of attack. I can’t speak for Bond, of course, but I can draw from my own personal experience.
First, if you are in a position to give any kind of institutional support, do so. Bond has received support from her home institution, the Society for Classical Studies, and the Women’s Classical Caucus recently, and they cannot be praised enough for doing so. Too many institutions are either remaining silent or even punishing professors for attracting the attention of far-right groups.
Scholars must all constantly reaffirm that ideas that we disagree with should be met with critique, not abuse. That critique may be forceful and energetic and emotional, but I think that reasonable people know where the line is that separates critique from harassment. (This should go without saying, but the inclusion of derogatory references to the writer’s race, ethnicity, gender, religion, appearance, sexual orientation, or age means that your critique has crossed that line and is now abuse.)
Furthermore — and I know that this might be controversial — if you know that a scholar is receiving abuse for an argument, and you want to critique that argument in good faith, I believe that the onus is on you to start off your critique by denouncing the abuse and differentiating your approach from that of the harassers. And if the bullied scholar responds to your critique in a way that you feel is unnecessarily defensive or thin-skinned, remember what they’re going through and give them more latitude than you usually would. If you aren’t prepared to take that approach, reconsider your motives for issuing that critique at that particular moment.
Some, no doubt, are thinking to themselves that Bond and I brought this on ourselves by writing about Classics and white supremacy. They are wrong. Nobody ever brings harassment or death and rape threats on themselves. Furthermore — and this is a crucial point — Bond did not argue what the far right is claiming she argued. (I likewise did not argue that classicists shouldn’t study canonical authors, although that argument is misattributed to me constantly.) She pointed out that groups such as Identity Evropa are using images of classical statuary, especially the Apollo Belvedere, in a way that recalls Nazi aesthetics. I’m not sure how any classicist can look at that poster and not feel horrified at its implications for our field, but that’s a topic for another day.
As those who are paying attention to online far-right groups know, communities like the alt-right are far less cohesive now that they don’t have the unifying goal of electing Donald Trump. Many in the community now feel that Trump is something of a disappointment. The main force keeping them together right now is an addiction to reactive outrage. They need a constant supply of events and ideas from the left to get enraged by, day after day, so that their anger can remind them that they have a common enemy. The mischaracterization of Bond’s argument gave them a hit. Somebody else’s ideas, or a distortion of those ideas, will be next. And it won’t be that person’s fault either.
One way to combat that kind of mischaracterization is to actually read Bond’s work. Not just her recent Hyperallergic article — look at her back archives on Forbes and her blog. (Better yet, read her book!) Again, I can’t speak for her, but I can speak for myself. And I know that I was worried that the response to my work would have a longer half-life than the work itself. I appreciate when classicists actually take the time to read what I wrote and engage with me about it as a colleague, rather than an oddity or a victim. Laurie Penny wrote a brilliant list of things you can do to help someone being bullied online, but the one that stuck with me the most is #19: “Remind them that their work has value, that they are more than the harassment they receive, that you are proud of them, and that you have their back.”
Finally, let’s all think about what it means about our society and our discipline that both Bond and myself are junior, female, and Jewish. (According to anti-Semites, at least: Bond is one-quarter Jewish, and I am fully Jewish but never considered it a major part of my identity until I was attacked for it.) If you want to be a more compassionate colleague, put some effort into thinking about how your colleagues may be vulnerable. Take them and their concerns seriously.
Doing public-facing classics is hard and frightening and, ultimately, absolutely necessary to the continuing health of our field. That does not mean, of course, that if you personally are not inclined to do public-facing work, you are doing something wrong. But be mindful that you do not contribute to the atmosphere in which classicists are bullied, shamed, and marginalized for speaking out about our discipline’s complicity in racism and sexism.
In June, Eidolon published ten articles, five of which are part of our special event celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the first Harry Potter book (marked with asterisks below):
Mathura Umachandran laid out some strategies for combating white fragility in Classics in Fragile, Handle With Care
Sarah Scullin satirized common misconceptions about traditional philology in Just the Texts, Ma’am
Yung In Chae satirized common misconceptions about feminist scholarship in The Feminist Theory of Everything
An anonymous teacher shared a week in their life in Diary of a High School Latin Teacher
Tino Delamerced explored the oppressive potential of orthography in light of spelling bees and covfefe in Definition, Please
*Eric Smith transcribed the Report of the Tenure Committee of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Regarding The Tenure Application of Minerva McGonagall
*Mitchell Parks explored the use of a quote from Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers as the epigraph for the final Harry Potter book in Epigraphs and Epitaphs
*Margaret Day connected Fluffy/Cerberus in Harry Potter with the Parthenon Marbles in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Return Them
*Liz Butterworth admitted that pedagogy at Hogwarts reinforces regressive politics in Up to No Good
*Caroline Bishop argued that Rowling, like Cicero, is an unruly author who insists on shaping her own reception in Harry Potter and the Undead Author
The Eidolon team has a major announcement coming in a few weeks, so stay tuned!
Donna Zuckerberg is the Editor-in-Chief of Eidolon. She received her PhD in Classics from Princeton and teaches for Stanford Continuing Studies and the Paideia Institute. Her book Not All Dead White Men, a study of the reception of Classics in Red Pill communities, is under contract with Harvard University Press. Read more of her work here.
