Lea Ypi explores dignity, memory, and historical injustice through family narrative.
CEISR, global perspectives and the study of inequality
The Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR) offers global perspectives on the major social transformations of the past and present, specialising in research into cross-border, transnational and supranational dimensions of Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. With strong roots in Area Studies, it provides an interdisciplinary space for scholars in the humanities and social sciences to identify thematic synergies that move beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.
CEISR’s work is structured around three core themes: marginality, inequality and security. These areas shape its research agenda and public engagement, ensuring a strong focus on some of the most pressing social and political questions across the world.
Alongside its research activity, CEISR’s annual calendar includes a number of high-profile events, the most significant of which is the CEISR Annual Lecture. These events underscore CEISR’s research focus on marginality, inequality and security and its contribution to the building of civic engagement with the humanities and social sciences at the University of Portsmouth.
Prof Lea Ypi by James Robins
The CEISR Annual Lecture: Reflections on the concept of dignity in an Albanian family story
Professor Lea Ypi (London School of Economics and Political Science) delivered the CEISR Annual Lecture on 4 June in a talk that was engaging and deeply compelling. Reading extracts from her book, she opened up about her methodological process combining family recollections, philosophy, and archival work, with a literary approach, narrating the life of her grandmother and tracing her early days in Ottoman Salonica to life in communist Albania. Having endured the Italian and then German occupation of Albania, her grandmother worked in labour camps while her grandfather spent 15 years as a political prisoner of the communist state.
The Q&A that followed the lecture brought together CEISR members and members of the public in a lively and thoughtful discussion, expanding on the themes raised in the lecture
Ypi highlighted an important detail from her book: she uses the word “indignity” only once, in the final sentence, despite dignity being a central concept explored throughout
She argues that her literary reconstruction of her grandmother's life, and the interpretation of available facts from secret service archives, 'enables a kind of catharsis encouraged by reflection on how things could be different - indignity defied by imagination'.
Indignity: A Life Reimagined is Ypi's most recent book. It was a book of the year for the Sunday Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Prospect, TLS, NPR, and shortlisted for numerous prizes.
