University Affairs interviews Misao Dean about online harassment

University Affairs interviewed Department of English Professor Misao Dean about the growing problem of online harassment.

"The first indication of something amiss arrived via email. The contents struck Misao Dean, a University of Victoria English professor, as odd: Why would an American right-wing talk show want to ask about her work on the Canadian symbolism of the canoe? In the next hour more emails followed. They came from around the world bearing a variety of messages, none of them kind – threats to her safety, obscene insults, calls for her to be fired. By 10 a.m., she sat, shocked, in her office. 'I really didn’t know what to do or how to react.' Dr. Dean didn’t know it then but she’d become the target of an organized campaign from the alt-right."

Read the full story in University Affairs.