Abstract

The article aims to explore the field of cultural studies in Albania. The main aspects of this field, almost new in Albania, are those of post-colonialism and post-socialism. As far as post-colonialism is concerned, the main field covered by Albanian cultural studies is «Balkanism», that is, a «Balkan version» of Orientalism. A region geographically inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed as «the other», the Balkans have often served as a repository of negative characteristics upon which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the «European» has been built. The topic of Balkanism in Albanian cultural studies scholarship offers a complex and articulated account of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into a pejorative designation. The other main theoretical framework of Albanian cultural studies is post-socialism, which deals with the transition of communist Albania to capitalist democracy. This transition has focused much scholarly attention in cultural studies on the fostering of new Albanian identities in the absence of the old communist social and ideological frameworks.