Introducing The Medieval Text Consortium Series: An interview with Robert Pasnau
By Mário João Correia
June 2025 – We begin today a set of interviews with editors of book series dedicated to medieval philosophy. Our aim is to introduce these series, but also to discuss issues related to our publishing practices and policies. And there’s no better way to start this series than with Robert Pasnau, whose In medias PHIL has been a source of inspiration for us. This time, it is in his role as Editor-in-chief of The Medieval Text Consortium Series that we conducted this interview with him.
About Robert Pasnau
Robert Pasnau is Professor of Philosophy and College Professor of distinction at UC Boulder. He is interested in many areas of philosophy, but has particularly devoted himself to the history of philosophy, especially the end of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the modern era. He is the editor of the Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy and the founding editor of Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy. His most recent book is After Certainty: A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions (OUP 2017).
The Interview
Mário Correia: First of all, thank you very much for your willingness to be interviewed again. What are the purposes of The Medieval Text Consortium Series? What distinguishes it from other series dedicated to medieval texts?
Robert Pasnau: The big difference with our series is that we’re fully open access, and what’s more we do not require that authors pay anything to publish with us. Beyond that, we’re run entirely by a distinguished team of medievalists. We decide what to publish, and how to publish it. We can publish 50-page books, or 1000-page books, and we decide whether a text, or a translation, is of sufficient quality and significance to merit publication. We also control every stage of production, and so we edit each volume carefully and typeset it according to the highest standards.
MC: What do you plan to publish in the near future?
RP: We’re going slowly, in part because each volume takes a lot of work, and in part because we’re accepting only work that is of really high quality. Last year we published Bartocci and Read’s edition/translation of Walter Segrave’s Insolubles. This year we’re publishing Longeway’s old unpublished edition/translation of Simon of Faversham’s questions on the Posterior Analytics, as entirely updated by Mora-Márquez and her team. We’re currently considering what our next volume will be.
MC: Some years ago, following a conversation about a provocative article (Marenbon’s “Why We Shouldn’t Study Aquinas”), one of the arguments used by a scholar I was speaking to was that we were losing ourselves in minor, irrelevant authors, whose ideas and philosophical arguments were not particularly interesting, in the name of an impossible historical reconstruction. This would lead to a way of studying medieval philosophy less oriented towards its philosophical depth, or to an exercise in erudition of little consequence. Given the publication of a less renowned author like Segrave in this book series, what response would you give to this kind of criticism?
RP: I’m all in favor of concentrating on the really deep and interesting parts of medieval philosophy. But it’s not so easy to know which parts those are. Is the genre of insolubles less interesting than scholastic elaborations of Aristotle’s physics? We don’t know yet, and, anyway, answers to that question may change from generation to generation. Assuming one is excited about the insolubles literature, how do we know which authors are most interesting? We need both editions and translations of a wide range of materials, so that future generations can make a more informed decision about which parts of medieval philosophy are worth studying.
Relatedly, no doubt it’s not always necessary for scholars, at the outset, to produce an immaculate critical edition of a text. Because of our open-access format, we’re willing to publishing provisional editions that are not intended to be the definitive-for-all-time version of a text. We’re also open to publishing translations and texts that are excerpts of longer works, and translations based on non-critical editions.
MC: Thinking in terms of the way we are evaluated as scholars, we are expected to publish regularly and abundantly. In today’s academic milieu we do not feel encouraged to do long term works, such as a critical edition, or a big, solid monograph. Furthermore, the kind of expertise we need to engage in an edition (languages, paleography, and so on) takes time to acquire. Do you see this as an issue for our field? And how can we deal with the pressure to publish fast?
RP: Yes, it’s a huge issue for our field. There are massive gaps in our understanding of medieval philosophy, and many of those gaps can be remedied only through the philological expertise and long-term dedication required for editions and translations. Those of us who train graduate students can help them acquire these skills. Those of us with the resources in the profession to support this kind of work should do what we can to support it. This initiative is one of my efforts in that regard. Many European scholars are supporting this sort of work through their grants.
As for the pressures of publication, younger scholars (which is really to say any scholar who doesn’t have a stable position) really do need to be strategic. If you’re in this position, you don’t have the luxury to take on whatever project appeals to you. You need to think very carefully about what’s in your own best interest, and you need to get good advice on this subject. None of us controls the sorts of pressures you’re describing, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. The goal should be to help good young scholars get stable jobs, and then they will have more space to take up longer term projects.
MC: Looking at the catalogue of some traditional publishing houses, one can verify that many volumes, especially editions of primary sources, often cost hundreds of dollars/euros. The proliferation of publications, as well as the increase in scope of what was traditionally considered the philosophical “canon”, create a problem of unaffordability. However, mere open access policies may not be the miraculous solution for this problem. Among other issues, open access policies (probably more in Europe than in other parts of the world) became a way of subsidising renowned publishers and companies with public funds that are paid with the intention of keeping with standards that are often defined, or controlled, by those same companies. Is this a correct assessment of the current situation? What is your opinion about the current academic publication “system” as whole? What are we doing right and wrong?
RP: You really are trying to provoke me, aren’t you?! Let me say again that, unlike most open-access opportunities, ours does not assess a fee. That’s in part because the editorial board does a lot of the work itself, and in part because I’m fortunate to have some funding through the Benson Center at the University of Colorado. In addition, Open Book Publishers, with whom we’re collaborating, is the very opposite of the sort of large conglomerate that seeks to profit off public funding for open access. I’d encourage anyone who has the chance to work with them.
As for the large fees that some publishers assess for open-access rights, I think we should all pay attention to which presses are serving the public interest, and which presses are profiting off of the public interest. There are lots of great presses out there, and those of us who are lucky enough to have a choice should try to work with them and avoid the more mercenary corners of academic publishing.
MC: Thank you very much once again.
©️Mário João Correia | “Introducing The Medieval Text Consortium Series”, IPM Monthly 4/6 (2025).
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