Alexa Alice Joubin received the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, which recognizes Professor Joubin’s “contributions to social justice and inclusive excellence ” that exemplify “the ideals that Dr. King espoused,” particularly “community-based social justice organizing rooted in non-violence.” Read More
Cross-gender roles and performances permeate many of Shakespeare’s plays. Viola presents as pageboy Cesario for most of the dramatic action in Twelfth Night. Falstaff escapes Ford’s house as the Witch of Brainford in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Rosalind ventures into the woods as Ganymede in As You Like It. In that same comedy, Celia (as Aliena), Phoebe, and Audrey were also played by boy actors in Shakespeare’s time. In Cymbeline, British princess Imogen dresses as a male servant, Fidele, on their quest to find their husband among the Roman soldiers. Read the special issue on contemporary transgender performance of Shakespeare of the open-access journal dedicated to Shakespeare and appropriation, Borrowers and Lenders. Read More
Donna Woodford-Gormley‘s new book, Shakespeare in Cuba (2021), uses the lens of cultural anthropophagy to explore Cuban adaptations of Shakespeare. According to the theory of cultural anthropophagy, or literary cannibalism, a culture, like Cuba, can consume Shakespearean plays, but digest them and embody them in new ways, giving life to both the consumed and the consumer. The theory has its roots in Latin America, and so it is an appropriate tool for examining how Shakespeare’s plays have been consumed, digested, and embodied in Cuban forms, but it is also an inclusive theory that places neither culture in a position of subservience and allows all to join the feast. Read More
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
Refugees are the theme of the Shakespearean International Yearbook Vol. 19, co-edited by Tom Bishop, Stephen O’Neill, Ton Hoenselaars, and MIT Global Shakespeares co-founder Alexa Alice Joubin (Routledge, 2022). Shakespeare has often offered orientation and even emotional refuge both to people in crisis and to those contemplating it. Read More
Fri, February 19, 2021 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST
Register at www.eventbrite.com/e/shakespeare-and-east-asia-tickets-136547261535
Join us for a book launch on how Shakespeare is connected to theater, film, and literature in East Asia.
Oxford University Press is sponsoring a book giveaway.
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Alexa Alice Joubin will be giving a TED-style plenary presentation on “Global Change through Shakespeare” during the Fulbright Association’s 42nd Annual Conference and Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., at 9:15 am on Saturday, October 26
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When history is held hostage by politics, when human rights are violated, story-telling helps restore dignity to what it means to be human. When William Shakespeare’s plays move through different cultures, they reveal unexamined assumptions about human nature and tell surprising stories about globalization.
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Shakespeare’s role in England’s global expansion is often categorized as a conduit for Empire. For example, Shakespeare’s texts were performed in English for the entertainment of European traders in Calcutta and Bombay in 1775. However, his texts function in a much more complicated way than these earlier models of transmission from London to the peripheries. Performances of Shakespeare offer a lens through which we can view the movement of peoples and their languages and cultures. Read More
Hay Festival in Wales, UK, is the largest literary festival in the world. On our panel with actor Simon Callow on June 3, 2016, we explored issues of censorship in appropriating and teaching Shakespeare. MIT Global Shakespeares co-founder Alexa Alice Joubin spoke at the Hay Festival. Read More
Do artists have moral responsibilities to speak truth to power? Should art comment on or steer clear of politics? How might politics affect artistic creativity? Where do we draw the line? MIT Global Shakespeares co-founder Alexa Alice Joubin spoke on the topic. Read More
Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance. Edited by Aneta Mancewicz and Alexa Alice Joubin. In the Reproducing Shakespeare series (ed. Tom Cartelli and Katherine Rowe). Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 “Contradictory myths are the foundation to many conversations about Shakespeare today. We can better grasp the significance of globalShakespeare by understanding the cultural logic of the production and consumption of these myths—often articulated in the form of journalistic adoration of universal aesthetics.” Full text of the Introduction: researchgate.net/profile/Alexa_Joubin Read More
