In the last two decades, scholarship underwent a radical transformation: the peer-review process became a standard procedure of the selection of publications in journals, books, and other outputs, while the use of English became dominant in human sciences. The peer-review process had an extremely beneficial impact on the production of a much-more transparent process of selection, while the existence of a lingua franca democratized and facilitated exchange of ideas between scholars from various backgrounds. At the same time, however, the strengths of this system also inevitably became its weaknesses: the peer-review process could be used as medium that standardizes scholarly thinking, and in extreme cases, can also lead to maintaining a retrogressive status quo due to a lack of heterogeneity and the exclusion of non-English dominant scholars. This reality is exacerbated by the immense capitalist pressure on scholars to be “productive” for their institutions and by extension for their institution’s funding: as a result, books and articles have often become primarily career-building elements rather than objects of genuine intellectual exchange and research progress. Thusly, debate has gradually lost its place in journals – articles that used to be structured for repeated responses and scholarly dialogue are now the bygone products of another world. Without such open debate, the humanities become terribly impoverished.

Finally, the use of English has disproportionately promoted the studies of scholars in the USA and the UK. The importance of USA and UK research cannot be minimized, but it is also true that in certain fields and for certain themes, its application to other cultural milieus can be very problematic. Together, the lack of debate, the dominant use of English, and the peer-review process (not to mention the inherent dominance of scientific studies over humanities in journal rankings) have thus radically reoriented the mainstream of research in one dominant direction, namely following UK-USA trends, which are, however, not always relevant frameworks for other cultural realities.

Through this new online platform, we would like to open this debate to a larger framework, not to challenge the importance of the debate which is produced from Berkeley to Oxford, but to give space to scholarly traditions which we believe are today marginalized within this mainstream. We wish that the platform created in Brno, a place traditionally situated at the crossroads of Europe, may serve as a place where scholarly dogmas and mainstreams can be critically challenged. We are aware that such an operation can be problematic, and that an editorial vision will inevitably emerge through the different contributions. This is clearly assumed by the composition of the advisory board, where scholars active in Brno are in majority.

We feel, however, that medieval studies and humanities more generally need a place today where challenging both the traditional historiographies and the current trends is possible in an open debate. Perhaps, humanities also need a place for simply conceiving, thinking, and dreaming a better world. The aim of this platform is to propose analyses, to establish a space for the confrontation of points of view. In short, to allow the deciphering of a complex reality, both of the uses of the Middle Ages today in society, politics, and scholarship and also of the paths taken by our disciplines. In sum, a space of debate – the sine qua non condition for democratic exchange.

This is the reason why this blog will revolve around freedom: freedom of format and freedom of ideas. Shorter or longer essays are welcome, with or without illustrations/or footnotes, touching all aspects of medieval visual and material culture, its reception, as well as its role for communities. All kinds of contributions will undergo an open peer-review process guaranteed by the members of the editorial board (see team). We will challenge only factual imprecisions or mistakes without any sort of intellectual censure. The unique exceptions will be texts which are openly promoting racist, discriminating, and hate-inciting ideas. If a text will be totally contrary to our shared vision of the world, we will take the liberty to accompany its publication with a statement. If the authors wish, their English text can be accompanied by its original language version. Each article will be provided with a DOI and the blog has an ISSN to guarantee major possible transparency.