Alexander Nash Albanian Studies Programme
Find out more about the programme
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Why SSEES holds the prestigious ‘Nash Fellowship’
The Alexander Nash Albanian Studies Programme was initiated on 1 September 1997 after SSEES received a generous bequest from Alexander Nash (formerly Naçi) who passed away in 1995 at the age of 46. Nash obtained a French and Spanish degree at Queens College, University of Oxford. He then worked as a university lecturer, journalist and translator, collaborating amongst other things with the European Commission. His father, Gjenco Naçi, an Albanian who was born in Turkey (1907) and grew up in Greece, had been private secretary of the former Albanian King Zog. Together with his Belgian wife and the Albanian monarch he fled the country in 1939 after the Italians invaded Albania. They first took refuge in France, and when Germany occupied Paris in 1940 they settled in the UK. With his bequest to SSEES, Alexander Nash honoured the wishes of his father (who had died in 1992) to establish a centre for Albanian studies in the UK. He also left his father’s and family’s archive to SSEES (the Naçi collection), which includes Gjenco Naçi’s correspondence as private secretary of King Zog, photographs and memorabilia of the Albanian royal family and the Naçi family.
The Alexander Nash Fellow
On the basis of the conditions of the bequest, SSEES has created the Alexander Nash Fellowship in Albanian Studies. The Alexander Nash Fellow is appointed for a limited period on a fixed-term contract.
Dr Lediona Shahollari is the Alexander Nash fellow in Albanian Studies at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She is a historian of the modern Balkans whose research focuses on the intersections of imperial legacies, nation-building, and migration. She received her PhD in history from the University of Michigan in 2025. Her dissertation explores the history of refugee governance and demographic engineering in the aftermath of the First World War in the (post)Ottoman Balkans. The dissertation raises connections between the making of Albania’s citizenship laws and migration policies during the interwar period and the unfolding of the 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange. Further projects will examine themes of interwar agrarian reforms, land development, and population management. Her scholarship has been recognized by the Association for Studies in Nationalities and Society of Albanian Studies, where she has won best graduate paper prizes. Her article, ‘‘The Meanings of Home: The Case of the Vinan (Vineni) Refugee Families and the 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange’’ has recently been published in Nationalities Papers. Her book chapter, ‘‘Turkey as the Land of Promise for Balkan Muslims?’’ is forthcoming in the second edited volume for The Lausanne Project entitled Reckoning with Loss.
The Alexander Nash Programme
The research interests of the Albanian Studies Programme primarily reflect those of the Alexander Nash Fellow. Since 2007, the main focus of the Fellowship has shifted to post-doctoral research, to be carried out by the Nash Fellow during his or her Fellowship.
Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers focused her research on migration, as well as changes in Albanian village life, including conflict regulation, political and social order, the village value system and economy.
Enkeleida Tahiraj's research focus was on social policy and anti-poverty programmes in Albania after 1991. As such, Enkeleida Tahiraj was also part of a research group on East European cities initiated by Dr Ger Duijzings
Rigels Halili carried out anthropological research on the Albanian-Greek border region. In addition he started a research project on the making of the borders of the Republic of Kosovo in collaboration with Dr Eric Gordy.
Academic visitorsThe Alexander Nash Programme in Albanian Studies also aims to support scholars and researchers in their research on issues related to Albania or Albanians. They may apply to come to SSEES as visiting scholars. Examples are Bernd Fisher of Indiana University who conducted research on British Albanophile movements and their influence during the Second World War, Mark Clarke who undertook research on Margaret Hasluck, and Bülent Bilmes of Yeditepe University (Istanbul) who carried out research on Sami Frasheri.
Research studentsThe Alexander Nash Programme in Albanian Studies welcomes students interested in Albanian studies at MRes and PhD, although unfortunately it is not able to provide financial support for study at these levels. Questions about MRes or PhD research and research supervision should be directed to the Head of Postgraduate Research or Postgraduate Administrator.
As part of the Alexander Nash Programme in Albanian Studies, the Nash Fellows have developed teaching modules and contributed individual sessions related to Albania and Albanians on a wide number of established BA and MA courses at SSEES, such as:
- BA Nations and Nationalism in the Balkans
- BA Introduction to East European Literature in Translation
- BA Cinema in Eastern Europe
- BA Culture in Eastern Europe: Anthropological Approaches
- BA Introduction to Politics
- BA Introduction to Sociology
- BA Principles of Sociology
- BA Politics and Societies of Southeast Europe
- MA Cultural Anthropology of Southeastern Europe
- MA Conflict, Violence and Reconciliation in the Balkans
- MA Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Western Balkans
- MA All Quiet on the Eastern Front: Culture, Politics, and Everyday Life in Central and Eastern Europe from Stalin to the Present
- MA Ethnopolitical Conflict in Central and Eastern Europe
- MA Qualitative Methods
- MA Advanced Qualitative Methods.
- 2023-2025, Dr Piro Rexhepi is Human Rights Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality along the Balkan Route.
- 2020-2023, Dr Dimitra Gkitsa is Lecturer in Curating at the University of Southampton. Her research is situated in the intersection of memory studies, affect, activism, contemporary art and curatorial practices, and the post-socialist visual cultures, with a particular focus on the geo-political region of Southeast Europe.
- 2018-2020, Dr Luca J. Uberti is Assistant Professor of economics, University of Milan-Bicocca. Luca's work examines the relationship between institutional quality and economic development in emerging-market economies, with a particular focus on Albania and Kosovo. While at SSEES, Luca continued to develop an ongoing research programme on the causes and consequences of political corruption.
- 2016-2018, Dr Nevila Pahumi is a Reference Librarian for Modern Greek and Albanian in the Library of Congress. Her research focuses on the intersections of religion, gender, and nationalism.
- 2014-2016, Dr Gezim Krasniqi is Lecturer in Nationalism and Political Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on politics, nationalism, state-building and citizenship in South East Europe.
- 2007-2010, Dr Rigels Halili is Assistant Professor at Centre for East European Studies at University of Warsaw. During his fellowship he carried out research on the Albanian-Greek border region, at the same time initiating a new research project on the making of the borders of the Republic of Kosovo, together with Eric Gordy from SSEES.
- 2004-2007, Dr Enkeleida Tahiraj is LSEE Visiting Senior Fellow. The core of her research is an inter-disciplinary study of poverty, social development, policy-making, language game and institutions.
- 1997-2003, Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers is Professor of Applied Anthropology at the Bournemouth University.