CEU’s 35th Anniversary Presidential Lecture Series Features Lea Ypi

CEU’s 35th Anniversary Presidential Lecture Series Features Lea Ypi
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Lea Ypi at the Weltmuseum. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
On April 16,
CEU’s 35th Anniversary
Presidential Lecture Series featured
Lea Ypi
delivering the talk, “
Dignity and Historical Injustice: The History of an Albanian Family
,” at Vienna’s
Weltmuseum
. During this second event in the year-long lecture series, Ypi discussed the moral and political themes of dignity from her
new book
, which traces the journey of a woman from Ottoman Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) and her life under surveillance in post-war communist Albania.
Ypi is the Ralph Miliband Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the
London School of Economics
, a fellow of the British Academy, and a
2025-26 Europe’s Futures Fellow of Institute for Human Sciences
(IWM) and
ERSTE Foundation
. A native of Albania, she studied philosophy and literature at the
University of Rome, La Sapienza
, received her PhD from the
European University Institute
(EUI) in Florence, and was a Prize Research Fellow at
Nuffield College, Oxford
. Her prizes include the
Philip Leverhulme Prize
for exceptional research achievement and the
British Academy Brian Barry Prize
for excellence in Political Science. She contributes regularly to The Guardian and  Financial Times, and the most recent of her many books are “
Free
” (2022) and “
Indignity
” (2025).
The 35th Anniversary Presidential Lecture Series
“For 35 years, CEU has combined the pursuit of academic excellence in scholarship, research, and teaching with a firm commitment to the mission of an open, democratic, and just society,” said CEU Interim President and Rector
Carsten Q. Schneider
during his introduction. “Our hard-earned reputation as a world-class institution of higher education comes with a heightened sense of responsibility and mission, especially at a time when universities are facing multiple challenges all over the world.”
CEU Interim President and Rector Carsten Q. Schneider. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
Regarding the lecture at the Weltmuseum, he said: “The symbolism of today’s venue is particularly significant, as it not only underscores our role as a university that is both in the world and of the world, but it also highlights the inherent, rich diversity of human cultures in their ever-changing historical specificity…Here we are tonight, in a museum of the world, reflecting on its messy complexity and asking questions that can better orient us.”
Dignity, Truth, and Reconciliation
Opening Ypi’s lecture, which included excerpts from her book “Indignity,” she asked: “Where do we find dignity in the world in which we live?” The book project, which traces the life of her grandmother, born in 1918, combined philosophy and literature to explore individual and collective dignity, in connection to questions of truth and reconciliation, historical injustice, and the relationship between fact and fiction.
Lea Ypi. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
Ypi’s investigation of her grandmother was prompted by a photo of her grandparents posted by an unknown user on social media. It garnered accusatory comments suggesting that her grandmother, the first woman to serve in the Albanian administration, may have been a communist spy or fascist collaborator. To learn more, Ypi researched surveillance records from Albanian state security during the communist period, the
Sigurimi files
. She wanted to understand why her grandmother was placed under surveillance and by whom. Ypi additionally conducted research for the book in Greek archives and noted that the project compelled her to explore the possibility of reconciliation after someone is no longer alive, and how future generations may restore the dignity of that person, their legacy, and their memory.
“I feel that truth is a process, it’s not something you find…It’s a practice, and it’s a process, and how you construct that process is really important to what you find at the end,” she said in her discussion with Schneider, remarking on writing both philosophical and literature texts. By writing literature through multiple character perspectives, Ypi said she can better see the limits of her own philosophical positions.
Carsten Q. Schneider (L) and Lea Ypi (R). Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
In the book, the story of Ypi’s grandmother is told through two distinct narrative voices, which are interspersed. The author noted that the first narrative voice of the book is closely related to the search for truth. “In many societies that are divided by the legacy of the past, there is a widespread belief that knowing the truth of what happened to specific families under oppressive systems, and identifying those who collaborated to maintain those systems, will actually help restore the dignity of the victims,” she said. This part of the book shows the grandmother through the eyes of the state and the communist authorities.
With the second narrative voice and perspective in the book, Ypi’s grandmother is presented in context from past to present as she navigates the dilemmas of her time. It traces her childhood in Salonika to adulthood in Tirana where she fights for her dignity and tries to assert herself in a world different from the Ottoman Empire in which she was born. This perspective, reconstructed from stories that Ypi’s grandmother transmitted to the author, as well as family records and additional historical material, further serves to illuminate the lives and challenges of those inhabiting the same historical junctures.
CEU's 35th Anniversary Presidential Lecture Series. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
Ypi discussed how the book contributes a political history of Europe from the collapse of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires until the collapse of communism in the Balkans. “I think every individual life reflects macro history and macro trends,” she said. With the book, Ypi maintains that her aim was not only to reconstruct missing parts of a family saga, but to also include stories of multiple individuals from the same period through a novelistic approach to offer a more encompassing exploration around the dignity of memory. For her, combining philosophy and literature helped to give voice to the silences of the archive.
“It's not really about what truth you find from the past, but what relations you build with other people as you're looking for that truth, and what you write and what you say,” she said. “And so, the kind of catharsis that you get from this process isn't really a catharsis that depends on closure with the past, but it's a catharsis that comes with encouraging thinking about how things could be different in the present and thinking about futures that you want to avoid.”
CEU's 35th Anniversary Presidential Lecture at Vienna's Weltmuseum. Image credit: CEU/Daniel Vegel.
Watch the Lecture
More Discovery, Discussion, and Debate
Celebrate 35 years of CEU during upcoming Presidential Lectures. Connect with CEU students, faculty, alumni, and partners from around the world to honor a shared history and look ahead in advancing societies of tomorrow.
Upcoming Lectures
May 26
:
Cas Mudde
​, Professor of International Affairs and​ Distinguished Research Professor, University of Georgia
June 18:
Binaifer Nowrojee
​, President, Open Society Foundations
July 7:
Tymofiy Mylovanov
​, President, Kyiv School of Economics
September 3:
Steffen Mau
​, Professor of Macrosociology, ​Humboldt University of Berlin​
October 15:
Katharina Pistor
​, Professor of Comparative Law, ​Columbia University​
Watch the Previous Lecture
Ivan Krastev: “The End of the Long 20th Century”
Register to attend the next CEU Presidential Lecture on May 26 featuring Cas Mudde - "Europe Under Trump: Challenges and Opportunities"
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