Dignity and historical injustice: the history of an Albanian family

Abstract

Can the memoir ask political questions that the academic monograph cannot? Can one research in archives and be mindful of the dignity of the lives being researched? Why do philosophers often turn to literature for answers? Lea Ypi looks back at her experience of writing two memoirs about her childhood and her family in Albania to offer her thoughts on these issues. Writing about her beloved grandmother, Ypi realises, allowed her to measure the tectonic movements of history that dramatically changed the shape of modern Albania. At the same time these memoirs are also a reckoning with herself—a diasporic academic weighing up the privileges and problems of being at home in the world. This article arises from a Lecture delivered on 17 September 2025.