Name Gezim Alpion | ||
Intervista e dr g zim alpion nga anxhelo xha ka p r studio dialog
Dr Gëzim Alpion is an academic, political analyst, writer, playwright, and civil society activist. He holds a BA from Cairo University and a PhD from Durham University, UK. He is currently based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Contents
- Intervista e dr g zim alpion nga anxhelo xha ka p r studio dialog
- Intervist mbi rrug n e arb rit me dr g zim alpion sbs world news australia
- Education Academic Career
- Personal Life
- Academic
- Playwright
- Journalism
- Civil Society Activist
- Construction of the Arbri Road
- Canonization of Mother Teresa
- References
Stephen Schwartz holds that Alpion is 'a pioneer in the academic study of the phenomenon of celebrity', and ‘the most authoritative English-language author on Blessed Teresa of Kolkata'. Referring to Alpion's 2007 study Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?, Schwartz contends that 'in its depth, breadth, and seriousness', this book 'may stand for some time to come as the single most important biography of Mother Teresa in English.’ In his review of the same book for the American Communication Journal, Marvin Williams holds that ‘Alpion’s examination of Mother Teresa’s celebrity is a case study of corporate identity management in today’s global media environment. His weaving of primary texts into the setting of this character piece creates a comprehensive cross-cultural examination that has the potential to become a new archetypal work of this mercurial personality.’
Intervist mbi rrug n e arb rit me dr g zim alpion sbs world news australia
Education & Academic Career
Gëzim Alpion was born in Peshkopi, Albania, in 1962. On the basis of the results of his first year at Tirana University, in 1985 he was awarded a joint scholarship by the governments of Albania and Egypt to pursue his studies at the University of Cairo.
After completing his PhD at Durham in 1997, Alpion lectured at the Universities of Huddersfield, Sheffield Hallam, and Newman before joining the Department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham in 2002 where he teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He also supervises doctoral candidates and post-doctoral fellows.
Dr Alpion is an editorial board member and reviewer for a range of peer-reviewed journals including Celebrity Studies (Routledge).
Alpion's main research interests are on social stratification and the sociology of religion, success, fame, media, authorship, race and ethnicity. He is currently developing the idea of ‘fame capital’ as a variable in an intranational and international context, and exploring the significance of Mother Teresa’s ‘dark night of the soul’ in a post-modernist context.
Alpion has delivered lectures and talks at numerous international conferences and universities in the UK (Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Nottingham, York St John, London School of Economics, University College London) as well as in Albania (Marubi Film Academy, University of Vlora), Australia (University of Melbourne, Deakin University), Canada (McGill University), China (Shanghai University), Finland (Universities of Helsinki, Turku), Germany, India (St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, University of Delhi), Italy (Universita Pontificia Salesiana, Rome), Kosova (University of Pristina), Macedonia (State University of Tetovo), Russia (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), South Africa (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) and the USA (AAASS Convention in Washington DC, New York University, University of California, Los Angeles).
Personal Life
Alpion is married and has two children.
Academic
Alpion’s main publications to date include: Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? (London and New York: Routledge, 2007; New Delhi: Routledge India, 2008; Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2008), Foreigner Complex: Essays and Fiction about Egypt (2002), and Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa, which was published in India and the US in 2008, 2009 & 2011. His next book on Mother Teresa will be published in 2016.
Some of the peer-reviewed journals that have published Alpion’s article and reviews include: International Journal of Public Theology, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses Journal, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans (currently known as Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies), Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Journal, The Review of Communication Journal, Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies and Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies.
Playwright
Alpion is also a playwright; his plays Vouchers (2001) and If Only the Dead Could Listen (2008) address the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in the West. Sponsored by Arts Council England, the plays have been successfully performed across the UK.
Journalism
Alpion has written features on British, Balkan, Middle Eastern and Indian politics, culture and identity for The Guardian, Hindustan Times, The Middle East Times, The Birmingham Post, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Hürriyet Daily News, and The Conversation (website).
Civil Society Activist
Alpion has been lobbying for several years for the construction of the Arbëri Road and the canonization of Mother Teresa.
Construction of the Arbëri Road
On 18 March 2013, Alpion began an online petition for the Albanian government that emerged after the June 2013 general election, to complete the construction of the Arbëri Road, a highway linking Albania’s capital Tirana with his native Dibra, one of the most impoverished and neglected regions in Albania. Access from Tirana to Dibra currently takes around six hours along a 180km poorly maintained road. The proposed highway will ensure an entire journey of less than two hours and be just 72km long. Furthermore, the highway will have another leg linking Dibra with Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, thus becoming a crucial part of the Balkan infrastructure. It will also ensure Macedonia, Kosovo and Bulgaria gain unprecedented access to the Adriatic Sea, contributing further to the EU integration of this area of the Balkans. In May 2014 Dr Alpion was received by the President of Albania, Bujar Nishani, the Speaker of Parliament, Ilir Meta, and the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Edmond Haxhinasto, and hosted a roundtable discussion in Tirana with a number of Albanian MPs where they discussed the Arbëri Road. To date the petition, which has been covered widely by the Albania media in the Balkans and diaspora as well as the British, Indian, and Slovakian media outlets, has over 10,000 signatories, consisting of 8,300 submitted online and 2,000 on paper. The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has yet to agree to receive the petition in person. The Albanian government allocated $110,000 towards a feasibility study in 2004 and the road was approved a year later. The road has been one of the main election promises for all major political parties since 2004 which once in power, have subsequently shelved it. During his visit to Macedonia in September 2015 Alpion had a meeting with Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration and a junior coalition partner in the Macedonian government since 2008. Among the issues discussed at the meeting were the construction of the Arbëri Road in the territory of Macedonia, and the future of the Radika River, a contentious issue in this country.
Canonization of Mother Teresa
In June 2014, Alpion began a campaign in support of the canonization of Mother Teresa. 'One of the reasons why Mother Teresa’s cause for canonization has stalled', Alpion told Matters India in September 2014, 'is due to the revelations about her deep distress in experiencing the ‘dark night of the soul’; this often forced her to doubt both God’s existence and the nature of her decision to serve the poorest of the poor.' The campaign was supported by church authorities, celebrities, film stars, priests, nuns and laity from 45 countries, and attracted the attention of the media in several countries.