As an independent issue in the regional series Thinking/Teaching Gender: Women's
Studies in South Eastern Europe, Civic Education Project in Albania seeks
contributions for a publication specifically focused on academic work concerning
gender in Albania. The book will bring together critical transdisciplinary
perspectives concerning gender in historical and contemporary Albania. The
book will be published by Belgrade Women's Studies Center and distributed
throughout Europe for use as a teaching and research resource. We encourage
submissions from all disciplines and from non-academic social actors, such as
workers in fields dealing with social and institutional reform.
We particularly welcome contributions that incorporate one of the following
themes:
- Critical theoretical work on gender as performance - cultural studies,
philosophy.
- Critical research on masculinity.
- Work addressing alternative gendered identities in Albania - and the
intersections of gender with sexuality. For example, how do homosexual
communities perform their gender in a generally hostile society?
- Original research into the recent socialist past will be welcomed -
what kind of material culture was employed to signify femininity and masculinity
under socialism?
- The relationship between institutional reform and gendered
identification and performance in post socialism - political, economic and
institutional changes in gendered composition and perception. How are European
Union inspired reforms, or changes initiated by the market and civil society,
understood amongst everyday Albanians?
- Critical work on the history, goals, and effects of international
non-government organizations working in the field of gender.
- Critical reports on teaching gender studies in Albanian education -
from institutional, teacher and student perspectives.
- How does ethnicity and gender intersect? Are stereotypes of Roma
women different from those of Albanian women? How do non-Albanian residents in
Albanian postsocialist society relate to the matrices of gendered
identifications. How do non-Albanian women relate to the dominant performances
of masculinity and femininity in Albania? How about non-Albanian men?
Submit abstract before: 10 December 2003
Submission deadline: 1 February 2004
Length: 2,000 - 5,000 words
Language: preferably English, otherwise in Albanian
Send submissions, comments, inquiries to the book editors:
Sonila Danaj (CEP Tirana University, University A. Xhuvani), Danjela Shkalla (CEP,
University A. Xhuvani) and Shannon Woodcock (CEP Tirana University, University
A. Xhuvani): genderalbania@yahoo.com.au
Participants will be invited to group meetings and social occasions to ensure
the project aims are clear. Editing assistance is available. We look forward
to hearing from you soon!
'...a valuable work, clearly written, based on serious research,
which...contributes in a new way to the analysis of a large slice of recent
Balkan history. It will of course be of interest to people concerned with
current problems in Kosovo and Macedonia; but it will also have a more lasting
place on the library shelves, when (or if ) those problems are resolved.' (Noel
Malcolm)
Kosovars--the Albanians from Kosovo--who went to Albania after the fall of
Communism were surprised to find an impoverished motherland interested only in
survival, while Albania's citizens were dumb-struck by the relatively opulent
lifestyles of the Kosovars and could not understand why they should want more
than they already had. The violence that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia
brought the two groups closer together, but not close enough to persuade more
than a few Albanian citizens to fight alongside the Kosovars in the 1998-9 war
or Macedonian Albanians during their insurrection of 2000-1. Moreover, Albania
itself imploded at a crucial moment. While a 'Greater Kosovo' -- incorporating
the border regions of Macedonia -- remains a theoretical possibility, the chance
of the Albanians of Albania or of the American and Swiss diasporas supporting
moves to dissolve the present international borders in pursuit of an 'Albanian
homeland' is extremely remote. Albanians appear content to retain their discrete
political entities, provided they are able to travel and trade freely.
In this topical book Paulin Kola challenges the accepted notion that there
is widespread support for 'Greater Albania' among the Albanian-speaking peoples
of the Balkans, and argues that Albanians do not wish to join a single,
politically recognised entity. He explains how the Albanians are marked by
ideological, religious and other divisions, many of which were exacerbated by
their differing reactions to nationalism as experienced in Tito's Yugoslavia and
Hoxha's Albania.
PAULIN KOLA was born in Lezha, Albania, and educated at Enver Hoxha University,
Tirana. He was a co-founder in 1990 of Albania's first opposition party, and
then served in his country's diplomatic corps. He has a PhD from the London
School of Economics and is now an international news writer and editor with the
BBC.
ALBANIAN IDENTITIES
Myth and History Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bernd J. Fischer
"... challenges some long-held assumptions regarding significant episodes in
Albania's past, sheds light on aspects of Albania life that have yet to be fully
explored, and provides new insights and perspectives for interpreting the
Albanian experience.... a pioneering effort in English-language studies of
Albania." - Nicholas C. Pano
Albanian history is permeated by myths and mythical narratives that often serve
political purposes, from the depiction of the legendary "founder of the nation",
Skanderbeg, to the exploits of the KLA in the recent Kosovo War. The essays in
Albanian Identities, by a multinational, multidisciplinary team of scholars and
non-academic specialists, deconstruct prevalent political or historiographical
myths about Albania's past and present, bringing to light the ways in which
Albanian myths have started to justify and direct violence, buttress political
power, and foster internal cohesion. Albanian Identities demonstrates the power
which myths still possess to this day, as they underpin political and social
processes in crisis-ridden post-totalitarian Albania.
Stepahnie Schwandner-Sievers is Lecturer and Nash Fellow in Albanian Studies at
the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.
Bernd J. Fischer is Professor of History at Indiana University - Purdue
University, Fort Wayne, and author of Albania at War 1939-1945.
xvii, 238pp. October 2002
Hbk: £35.00 1-85065-571-5
Pbk: £ 14.95 1-85065-572-3
