Associate Professor Konstantinos Giakoumis

Konstantinos (Kosta) Giakoumis is Associate Professor of History, Arts and Methods at LOGOS University College, Tirana, Albania. He is a Ph.D. holder from the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Studies, the University of Birmingham and he specializes in social, cultural, economic and political history of the Balkans from the middle Byzantine period to the late Ottoman period, with an emphasis on the West Balkans. His interest in the communist period of Albania was initiated in the frame of comparative studies looking at continuities and diversities of institutions like pilgrimage into communist times and continued in the use of education for the constructional of a national-socialist identity. Dr. Giakoumis is currently engaged in a project looking at religious dissidence in Albania and in another studying how faithful make choices regarding what religious heritage to rescue and what to let go in times of harsh repression and crisis. Dr. Giakoumis is author to the following studies related to the NEP4DISSENT COST Action: [1] Giakoumis, Konstantinos. 2014. “From Religious to Secular and Back Again: Christian Pilgrimage Space in Albania.” In Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe: Crossing the Borders, edited by John Eade and Mario Katić, 103-18. London: Ashgate. [2] Giakoumis, Konstantinos & Lockwood, Christopher. 2015. “Pilgrimage Centered at Text and Memory: The Lapidar in Qukës–Pishkash.” In Lapidari, edited by Vincent van Gervain Oei, vol. 1, 89-104, Brooklyn NY: Punctum Books. [3] Giakoumis, Konstantinos & Kalemaj, Ilir. 2017. “Aleks Buda, Mitet Komuniste rreth Kombit dhe Struktura Konceptuale e Muzeut Historik Kombëtar.” In Aleks Buda dhe Studimet Albanologjike. Përmbledhje e Materialeve të Konferencës Shkencore Ndërkombëtare, Elbasan, 20 maj 2016, 142-54. Tirana: Shpresa Print. [4] Giakoumis, Konstantinos & Kalemaj, Ilir. 2018. “Fortifying the Nation: The Image of the Greeks in Albanian History Textbooks (1945-1990).” In Myths and Mythical Spaces: Conditions and Challenges for History Textbooks in Albania and South-Eastern Europe, edited by Claudia Lichnofsky, Enriketa Pandelejmoni and Darko Stojanov, 195-223. Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht Unipress. Dr. Giakoumis has also curated an exhibition titled Materializing Religious Dissidence in Albania (1967-1990). An Exhibition. Tirana, May-June 2019.