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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 theorymise-en-scènecinematographysound and music, and adaptation strategies in the context of global Shakespeare.

...continue reading "Open-Access Textbook: Screening Shakespeare"

Many characters in Shakespeare's plays lend themselves to be interpreted as transgender. Even though Shakespeare’s plays were initially performed by all-male casts, they were designed to appeal to diverse audiences. Shakespeare’s plays, as readily available reference points, have been reimagined in performances that explore new gender roles. In particular, transgender performances tend to be billed, or perceived, as art with a cause, as a socially reparative act leading to the amelioration of personal and social circumstances. Reparative trans performances—works in which characters see their condition improve—carry substantial affective rewards by offering optimism and emotional gratification. The call for social justice may seem universal, but the exact elements requiring reparation are malleable. The reparative arcs diverge dramatically between different works. ...continue reading "Transgender Shakespeare and Why It Matters"

There are five striking themes surrounding cultural, racial, and gender dynamics. Gender roles in the play take on new meanings in translation, and familiar and unfamiliar accents expanded the characters’ racial identities.

Since the nineteenth century, stage and film directors have mounted hundreds of adaptations of Shakespeare drawn on East Asian motifs, and by the late twentieth century, Shakespeare had become one of the most frequently performed playwrights in East Asia. There are five striking themes surrounding cultural, racial, and gender dynamics. Gender roles in the play take on new meanings in translation, and familiar and unfamiliar accents expanded the characters’ racial identities.

In her new book, Shakespeare and East AsiaAlexa Alice Joubin explores five fascinating aspects about Asian adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.

...continue reading "Five themes in Asian Shakespeare adaptations"

The world needs good question askers as much as it needs good problem solvers. Before solving problems, we need to first identify the problems. Great stories are often strangers at home. The best of them defamiliarize banal experiences and everyday utterances while offering something recognizable through a new language and form.
Putting a human face on globalization
Putting a human face on globalization

An op-ed by Alexa Alice Joubin, originally published in Signal House.

Great stories are often strangers at home. The best of them defamiliarize banal experiences and everyday utterances while offering something recognizable through a new language and form.

...continue reading "Familiar Ambiguity: The Value of the Humanities in a Globalized World"

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Asian Americans have been spat on, verbally assaulted and physically attacked in more than a thousand race-related incidents in the United States as a result of fear evoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. During a virtual town hall webinar, Alexa Alice Joubin provided a historical context for the discussion. She said connecting the language of disease to racism is not a new phenomenon. ...continue reading "Anti-Asian Racism during COVID-19 Pandemic"

Alexa Alice Joubin’s new book offers a global and historic understanding of the term race. The book argues that the concept of race is entangled with empirical knowledge, misinformation and ideology that seek to justify and sustain particular beliefs and is often articulated in the form of stereotypes that condense perceived behavioral patterns with biological features. Race becomes notable when groups have come into contact with other groups. ...continue reading "Book Launch of Race"

How might we engage with the "essence" of King Lear, or "Learness," in a networked culture?  Juxtaposing the clips of the division-of-the-kingdom scene from different films allows us to reexamine our perceived ethical burden to explain Lear’s problems away. The scene in Peter Brook’s 1971 film is dominated by close-ups of Lear and other characters, framing Paul Scofield’s Lear as a solemn statue. Peter Brook’s 1962 RSC production and subsequent 1971 film of King Lear engages with the theme of ecocriticism through an apocalyptic mise-en-scène.

In contrast to Laurence Olivier’s Lear in Elliott’s 1983 film, who laughs off Cordelia’s initial response, Scofield’s Lear speaks methodically and remains stern throughout the scene, which ends with him calmly banishing Cordelia. Cordelia’s aside is cut, thereby diminishing the weight of a potentially revelatory moment as well as Cordelia’s self-discovery.

...continue reading "Teaching King Lear in a Global Context"