Writing Oneself into History: Queer, Bosnian, Muslim, and Foreign with Ervin Malakaj

Writing Oneself into History | Kosovar-Albanian Literature in the German-speaking sphere with Dr Chloe Fagan

Dr Phil ⁠Chloe Fagan⁠ is our guest for the episode Writing Oneself into History | Kosovar-Albanian Literature in the German-speaking space. Dr Chloe Fagan received a Bachelor's Degree in German and English, and then her PhD in German Literature from Trinity College Dublin. She currently works for Goethe-Institut Irland. She has published 'Translation and the Renegotiation of Albanian-Austrian Migrant Identity: Ilir Ferra's "Halber Atem" as a Critique of Migrantenliteratur' in Moving Texts, Migrating People and Minority Languages (2017) and "Senthuran Varatharajah's Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen. Representing the Kosovo War and the Tamil Conflict as an Absence and the Trauma of Language" in Germanistik in Irland. Writing oneself into history | Kosovar-Albanian Literature in the German-speaking sphere. Situating and differentiating between experiences matters. Unlike Turkish-German literature, which took root in Germany with the arrival of the Gastarbeiter, Kosovar-Albanian and Albanian writing in German-speaking contexts did not begin to appear until the 1990s. While it is gaining more traction, it remains a marginal movement, and precisely for that reason, it highlights the stakes: the need for recognition and for recording different ontologies of place, memory, and identity. It shows how communities carve out visibility when the archive has not made room for them. To discuss this and the quest to learn Albanian, I spoke to Chloe Fagan for this episode.

Bosnia and Herzegovina 30 Years after Dayton with Dr Jasmin Mujanović

In this episode I am joined by Jasmin Mujanović to explore Bosnia's political and social landscape three decades after the Dayton Peace Accords, which were initialed on 21 November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, and formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. We discuss how the country's constitutional setup shapes its sovereignty and democratic development, the importance of understanding pre-war ideologies from the 1990s, and how the memory and narrative of genocide continue to inform national identity and political life. Bosnia's geopolitical position in the Western Balkans also comes into focus as we trace the key turning points that have shaped the country since the war. We also speak about the role of the diaspora in shaping narratives about Bosnia from abroad and much more. Dr. Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist and policy specialist focused on Southeast European politics and international affairs. He holds a PhD from York University in Toronto and has worked across North America and Europe as a scholar, analyst, consultant, and researcher. He is the author of Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans (Hurst/Oxford, 2018) and The Bosniaks: Nationhood After Genocide (Hurst/Oxford, 2023). Dr. Mujanović is currently a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Western Balkans Center of the Washington, DC–based New Lines Institute.

Diasporas Speaking Season Two announcement

After an enriching first season, Diasporas Speaking is happy to come back with a second season, with the first episode streaming the week of the 8th of December 2025.

Music, Memory & Movement: Exploring Diasporic life through sound

In this episode, Rina Limoni, founder and host of the Diasporas Speaking Podcast will be interviewed by Arbër Qerka-Gashi, to reflect on her life experiences through music. Using songs and music as prompts to evoke memories, the conversation delves into how these songs and music have accompanied Rina throughout her journey of displacement and migration, through the difficulties of navigating identity formation, code switching in different environments and exploring the personal significance they hold and the ways they symbolise key moments in her life

Writing Oneself into History: Queer, Bosnian, Muslim, and Foreign with Ervin Malakaj

Writing Oneself into History: Queer, Bosnian, Muslim, and Foreign with Ervin Malakaj Ervin Malakaj was born in Doboj. In the 1990s he lived as refugee in Germany before immigrating to the USA. After completing graduate degrees in German studies, he became a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he currently lives with his partner and dog. Ervin’s scholarly work focuses on queer and diaspora studies with a special focus on visual culture. He is currently completing a book of personal essays about live in the queer Bosnian diaspora provisionally titled Tetka Theory.What does it mean to write oneself into history when your existence sits at the margins: queer, Bosnian, Muslim, and foreign?In this episode of Diasporas Speaking, Dr Ervin Malakaj joins us for a moving and critical conversation on identity, displacement, and the radical act of self-definition. Blending personal narrative with critical insight, Dr Malakaj reflects on the politics of visibility, the weight of inherited histories, and the transformative power of storytelling. Together, we explore how queerness, diaspora, and cultural memory intersect and how speaking, writing, and remembering become vital acts of survival, resistance, and belonging.Intro music: North-Albanian Instrumental.Interlude: Himzo Polovina - 'Snijeg Pade Na Behar, Na Voće'