Changes I’d Like To See

Here are some changes I’d like to see. Not massive societal overhauls, mind — just a few minor improvements to scholarship and publishing and public discourse on certain topics. Little desiderata.

• I’d love it if Euro-medievalists could find it within themselves to be specific about the places they’re talking about. Instead of e.g. Food in the Middle Ages, try Food in Medieval Europe. Or, if you’re a typical Anglophone medievalist, try Food in Medieval France and England (and Maybe the Low Countries Too, A Bit).
• I’d love it if use of the word ‘medieval’ could be standardised to mean ‘pertaining to Afro-Eurasia before (post-)1492’. This is a useful definition — neither too broad nor too narrow, and genuinely helpful in formulating questions about the world. I’ve written about this elsewhere.
• I’d love it if scholars could abandon subfield-specific definitions of extremely broad terms, like the book historian’s notion that ‘the Middle Ages’ ended when movable type was used to print books in Central Europe.
• There’s no cure for scholarly myopia, and the nature of academia means that most people only read scholarly work published within their own field and discipline, but: I’d love it if everyone knew a bit more about the history and geography of the world and the people in it. And, more specifically, I’d love it if everyone knew a bit more about some regions of the world neglected by the prevailing discourse, like island Southeast Asia and tropical Africa.
• I’d also love it if people in general cared enough about these places and their inhabitants to learn more about them, preferably by reading about them (not just by talking to scholars online or at conferences).
• The idea of ‘premodernity’ should probably be done away with. Unless we can all agree on a good definition, like ‘the world before the Columbian exchange’, i.e. ‘medieval’ but for the entire planet. Something like that, anyway. But I suspect this well is pre-poisoned.
• I’d love it if translation were valued more highly. A good translation with notes and commentary is the equal of a dozen monographs, but it’s rare for it to be treated as such. Monographs come and go; a translation will often long outlive its translator.
• I’d like it if those Loeb Classics-style parallel-text editions and translations could be rationalised a little. Why does the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library range only cover works in Old English, Latin, and Greek? Why is Bessarion (1403–1472) in the Medieval Library when Pope Pius II (1405–1464) is in the Renaissance Library? Bessarion and Pius knew each other and both lived and wrote in Italy. A sensible classification would put their works together in the same series. Sort it out, Harvard University Press!
• It’d also be nice if Old Portuguese and Old Czech and other European languages could be included in the Medieval Library range (or something like it). Or: it would be nice if there could be a Medieval (Afro-Eurasian) Library along similar lines, with works in Old Sundanese, Ge’ez, Old Tamil, etc., included alongside the European ones. I think we can all acknowledge that it’s just plain nice to read interesting texts in translation with the original text right there in an affordable and attractive hardback edition with notes and an intro. There should be more of that sort of thing. I suspect it would increase the prestige of languages like Old Sundanese if they were treated like Latin and Greek (etc.).
• More affordable and accessible facsimiles, editions, and translations of indigenous American texts would also be good, premodern (ah!) and modern.

And that’s all I’ve got for now. Well, of course it would also be nice if chocolate improved muscle tone, and it would be lovely if our world suddenly became a more equal place such that billionaires no longer existed and everyone understood the importance of the public ownership of essential services and people in Chad and Timor Leste lived as long and as comfortably as people in Denmark and Canada. But for now these few points are the small changes I would like to see. I hope they’re food for thought even if you disagree.

A. J. West — Lisbon, 2022.