Shaily Patel: i don't have the answers; i won't pretend to have them, either. but i seriously think the question of "what about his work?" is a distraction, one designed to keep us from doing the much, much harder work of making all our spaces safe from abusers or would-be abusers.

seems like folks are, again, having the "but his body of work is so good" conversation. here are two essays i read when academia had this conversation, yet again. the first is a searing piece in eidolon by sarah scullin. eidolon.pub/making-a-mon...

Making a Monstereidolon.pub Content Note: this article includes discussion of child pornography, quotes from illegal online activity, and links to articles that…

the other comes from jae hee han, someone i admire on a lot of levels. he talks about why the accusations re: jan joosted erase race, and what that means for accountability in general.

On the Erasure of Whiteness in Responses to Convicted Pedophile Jan Joosten, a White Manreligiondispatches.org In her now classic paper titled White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo writes about the many ways that white people create a world in their own image. She argues that this world emerges from and reflects a “...

i don't think there's an easy answer to the question of "what do we do with his work?" you can not use it. e.g.: i'll remove gaiman from my syllabi. but we can also acknowledge his work may have been formative for lots of folks and that readers make their own meaning. readers including survivors.

i think the harder question, and the one we never seem to care enough about in academia is: how do we make our spaces safer? if famous scholar has a lower h-index, that doesn't necessarily make academia safer for survivors, right?

i don't have the answers; i won't pretend to have them, either. but i seriously think the question of "what about his work?" is a distraction, one designed to keep us from doing the much, much harder work of making all our spaces safe from abusers or would-be abusers.

at least i'd say that's true of academia. not saying we *shouldn't* have this conversation of "what to do with his work" - we absolutely should. i just wish so many of our conversations didn't stop there. and i'm hoping the sci-fi/fantasy world's response helps us mount our own responses.

one last essay: we give white men, especially nice white men, a pass. this is from my anger translator @slyprofessor.bsky.social, who discusses the role of "himpathy" in accusations of abuse.

Love the Scholarship But Hate the Scholar’s Sin?: 'Himpathy' for an Academic Pedophile Enables a Culture of Abusereligiondispatches.org In her excellent book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, the philosopher Kate Manne coined the term Himpathy, which she defined as “the excessive sympathy sometimes shown toward male perpetrators of se...

I feel very strongly about this point. If I’m teaching a topic where I can’t avoid the monster, I tell the students that X wrote ABC, is important to history of scholarship. I also tell them about the abuses. Leave it to them to follow up or not. I always tell the stories of abuse. No erasure.

And by “stories,” I mean documented truth, either because of an arrest, a university investigation, or overwhelming testimony of victims. There are a lot of instances of universities quietly getting rid of people without doing anything bc liability. Doesn’t change the fact of their abuse.

Religious ethicists who work on war and pacifism have dealt with a similar problem related to a prominent scholar. This statement from his seminary is helpful. www.ambs.edu/ambs-respons...

AMBS Response to Victims of John Howard Yoder Abusewww.ambs.edu This statement by the AMBS faculty reports on shared agreements that will guide how AMBS faculty teach, critique, interpret and use John Howard Yoder's...

Thank you!

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