faculty

Gazmend Kapllani

College of Liberal Arts and Social SciencesModern LanguagesIslamic World StudiesProfessional Lecturer, The Hidai 'Eddie' Bregu Visiting Chair for Albanian Studies, and Professor of InstructionFacultyFull Time
DegreesPhD
Contact
gkapllan@depaul.edu

BIO

Gazmend Kapllani is an Albanian-born scholar, author, and journalist fluent in multiple languages. He resided in Athens, Greece, for over two decades (1991–2012), where he studied philosophy and psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and earned a Ph.D. in political science and history from Panteion University. Dr. Kapllani taught Albanian and Balkan history at Panteion University (2008–2011) and became a prominent journalist in both the Greek and Albanian press.

He has authored two collections of poetry in Albanian and four novels written in both Greek and Albanian, in addition to numerous scholarly essays. His literary and academic work focuses on borders, totalitarianism, migration, identity, and how Balkan history has shaped private and public narratives and memories. His novels are included in curricula at leading universities in Europe, the United States, and Canada, and have been the subject of many scholarly essays and of theatrical adaptations in different countries and languages.

Kapllani’s first best-selling novel, A Short Border Handbook (2006), has been translated into ten languages. The novel was adapted for the stage by Bornholm Theater in Denmark and the National Theater of the Deaf in Greece, and received the International Literary Prize of the City of Cassino in Italy in 2017. His other novels, My Name is Europe, The Last Page, and Wrongland, have been published in French, Italian, Albanian, Greek, and English. The Last Page was shortlisted for the French Prix Cezam Littéraire Inter CE 2016 and received the literary prize of the Salon du Livre des Balkans in Paris.

Wrongland was a finalist for the 2025 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal, which recognizes "the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought". The novel was adapted for the stage by Greek theater director Pantelis Flatsousis and performed in Athens in 2022.

Since 2012, Dr. Kapllani has lived and taught in the United States, where he has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a writer-in-residence at Brown University and Wellesley College. He taught creative writing and European history at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts (2013–2018). Since 2019, Dr. Kapllani has chaired the Hidai “Eddie” Bregu Endowment in Albanian Studies at DePaul University and directed the DePaul Albanian and Southeastern European Undergraduate Certificate. The DePaul Albanian Studies Program, the first of its kind in American academia, was established under his leadership as a dynamic, interdisciplinary curriculum dedicated to the study of Albanian culture, language, history, and politics as a gateway to the broader region of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, a region that has historically been a crossroads of cultures, languages, and religions. Dr. Kapllani’s internationally recognized expertise as an author, scholar, and journalist informs his teaching and leadership of the Albanian Studies program. For more information regarding Albanian and Southeastern European Studies Undergraduate Certificate visit: https://catalog.depaul.edu/programs/albanian-and-southeastern-european-studies-undergraduate-certificate/

Interests

  • 20th Century Albanian and Balkan/Eastern European History and Literature
  • Creative Writing and Diaspora Literature
  • Border Studies and Global Migration
  • Modern European Philosophy

Courses Taught at DePaul

  • HON 101: Global Literature: Tirana-Warsaw Express: Storytelling after the fall of the Berlin Wall
  • HON 105: Philosophical Inquiry: Existentialism as fiction and lived experience
  • LSP 112: Focal Point Seminar: Borders in contemporary Literature: from Albania to Arizona
  • LSP 200: SouthEastern European Migration to Americas: tales of identity, gender, and food in the new world
  • MOL 280: The Unbearable Similarity of the Other: Food, History, and Identity in the Balkans
  • MOL 285: The Plague: Pandemics between Fiction & Reality
  • ALB281: Tales of Political Dystopia: Storytelling after the Berlin Wall
  • ITA260/ALB397: Eat Italy: The History, Culture, and Politics of Italian Food
  • ALB395: Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC) for Albanian heritage speakers

Links in English