The Screen as an Interface in Shakespearean Performance

By | September 15, 2022

The concept of “interface” is often overlooked in the study of performances. The screen interface immerses audiences in an alternate universe in such a way that audiences rarely question the screen’s aesthetic function. That interface often makes itself transparent even though it is generating the dramaturgical meanings central to the narratives. Performance, as a medium, interfaces with textual variants, different scripts, the stage or the film set, and audience expectations. Within some Shakespearean performances, screens are literal and metaphorical interfaces. The interface between humans (story-tellers) and machines (technologies of representation) governs the very logic of screened performance as a narrative medium. Let us take a look at a few examples. Read More

Open-Access Textbook: Screening Shakespeare

By | August 21, 2022

We are pleased to announce the publication of MIT Global Shakespeares co-founder Alexa Alice Joubin’s Screening Shakespeare, a new, open-access, online textbook with interactive learning modules. You can learn about key concepts of film and adaptation studies. The openly-licensed book is free to all. You can learn about film theory, mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound and music, and adaptation strategies in the context of global Shakespeare. Read More

A Transgender Ophelia

By | July 07, 2022

What if some Shakespearean characters are transgender or played by trans actors? Examples include Viola as pageboy Cesario in Twelfth Night, Falstaff as the Witch of Brainford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Rosalind as Ganymede in As You Like It, and Imogen disguised as the boy Fidele in Cymbeline. Different kinds of trans practices elicit contrasting reactions. While trans masculine acts, such as those staged by Viola’s Cesario, are often performed in the vein of empowerment, trans feminine characters, such as Falstaff’s Witch of Brainford, are ridiculed by other characters and by the audiences. Read More

Alexa Alice Joubin

Trans Studies and Why It Matters

By | April 26, 2022

Recently, anti-feminist, white nationalist, (trans)misogynist, anti-immigrant, and homophobic movements have used “genderism” to evoke a range of disruptive identities and to attack legal and social human rights [watch the video recording]. On April 14, 2022, the George Washington University Humanities Center hosted an event entitled “Trans Studies and Why It Matters: A Conversation with Alexa Alice Joubin“; the event was chaired by Lynn Westwater. The conversation explored how transgender studies can combat intersectional forms of oppression and what the history of transgender studies can teach us about our current social crisis. Read More

New Books Network Interview: Shakespeare and East Asia

By | February 23, 2022

Shakespeare’s plays enjoy a great deal of popularity across the world, yet most of us study Shakespeare’s local productions. Alexa Alice Joubin‘s Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford 2021) addresses this gap through a wide-ranging analysis of stage and film adaptations related to Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The New Books Network interview about the book by MIT Global Shakespeares co-founder Alexa Alice Joubin is now live. The interview was hosted by Amanda Kennell (North Carolina State University). Read More

Hamlet

Kishworjit 2001

“The dilemma of Hamlet is juxtaposed with the conflict of contemporary Manipuri youth.” (Kishworjit, director). Read More