Date: Friday 26 September 2025
Location: OASE, Schiehaven 15a, Rotterdam
“Literature can bridge the gap between the particular and the universal, more so than historical writing”
– Lea Ypi
On September 26, 2025, we welcomed political scientist and philosopher Lea Ypi to a sold out OASE on the occasion of the Dutch translation of her latest book, Indignity. Ypi is Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and was named one of the world’s top ten thinkers by Prospect magazine. She grew up in communist Albania and draws on her personal experience to investigate the complex relationship between freedom and democracy, the rise of populism, and the challenges of political change.
Following the international success of her memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Indignity: A Life Reimagined is a powerful call to think differently about memory, survival, and solidarity in an age of crisis. Blending philosophy with autobiographical reflection, the book offers a sweeping reimagining of Europe’s past—from the world of Ottoman aristocracy to the making of modern Greece and Albania, through war, the dawn of communism, and the global financial crisis.
This evening with Lea Ypi explored what it means to survive in an age of extremes and reveals the fragility of truth—both personal and political. Moving between present and past, archive and imagination, fact and fiction, Indignity raised difficult questions: What do we really know about the people closest to us? With what moral authority do we judge the acts of previous generations? And in light of today’s political conflicts and the crisis of liberal democracy: what can history teach us about our present predicament?
Participants
Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi is a professor of political theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. A native of Albania and a prizewinning academic, she was named one of the ten most important thinkers in the world in 2022 by Prospect magazine. Her book Free: Coming of Age at the End of History was an international bestseller and won several prestigious prizes. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academia Europaea, and contributes regularly to The Guardian, New Statesman, and Financial Times.
Nuria Ribas Costa
Nuria Ribas Costa is a Spanish Journalist and Jurist based between Rotterdam and Ibiza, her homeland. Formerly at OMA, she currently works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in the fields of urbanism and culture. She is part of urbanism agency Humankind, research group Vigla, the Center for Music Ecosystems and De Dépendance. She is interested in the relationships rural-urban, the politics of space and land and intersectionality in urbanism.