For the past twenty years, scholars of world and global history and literature have shown that the early modern world was a complex, entangled place. And yet, by emphasizing connection, such work at times overlooks the many separations that drove the engines of global early modernity: transoceanic slave trades, tribute labor, and the economic…[Read more]

Analyzing trans narratives about the early moderns through the lenses of affective labor and social reparation, this chapter reclaims as trans the Shakespeare films that have been misinterpreted as homosexual. In doing so, this chapter builds a longer, more intersectional history of gendered embodiment. Reparative trans performances—works in w…[Read more]

This article examines new theories and praxis of listening for silenced voices and of telling compelling stories that make us human. Elucidation of our Levinas-inspired theories of the Other is followed by a discussion of classroom practices for in-person and remote instruction that foster collaborative knowledge building and intersectional…[Read more]

It is my contention that iconic lyrics of this period register a shift in awareness of human psychology that gives them a status equal to that we might grant to major tragedies like Hamlet and King Lear, or novels such as Proust’s masterpiece and War and Peace. The contemporary literary and artistic consequences of this evolution are perhaps more…[Read more]

Describes and provides examples of modules and assignments for a sophomore Brit Lit survey and an upper-division poetics class that responded to student demands for a more racially diverse canon. Includes a brief discussion of Lucius Henry Holsey, enslaved worker on the UGA campus, who claimed to have learned to read from Milton’s Paradise Lost…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

This is the UNEDITED PRE-PRINT of my section of the multi-authored article “Journal of a Plague Year: Six Voices from American Universities,” ed. Christa Jansohn, which appeared in _Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen_. The other authors were Andrew James Hartley, Jean Howard, Christoph Irmscher, Anthony Lioi, and Lisa S.…[Read more]

This essay challenges the current dismantling of Shakespeare’s oeuvre by the questioning of the texts and authorship of many of his plays, in order to undercut their scripts’ authority, thereby authorizing drastic reinterpretations by critics and directors. The essay in contrast seeks to extend the authorship and flexibility of Shakespeare’s authorship

Register at https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jyEzkIZYQZ6bKzjjr3faZg :::: The University of Chicago East Asia by the Book! Author Talks is proud to present a book launch of Alexa Alice Joubin’s Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford University Press). Chair: Haun Saussy (University of Chicago). Discussant: Michael Saenger (Southwestern…[Read more]

In this paper, in a panel co-sponsored by the MLA Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession and the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, I summarize some of the structural and practical problems that challenge contingent scholars when they try to publish their work in scholarly journals. I share the record of the online, multimedia,…[Read more]

This reflective paper contextualizes my own climate grief in light of botanical and geological references to sorrow in Shakespeare’s plays and to habitat and climate change in the North Georgia Piedmont.

Performing Shakespeare in modern times is an act of mediation between characters and actors, creating channels between geocultural spaces and time periods. The multiplicity of the plural term global Shakespeares helps us push back against deceivingly harmonious images of Shakespeare’s ubiquitous presence. Adaptations accrue nuanced meanings as t…[Read more]

Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford, 2021) explores distinctive themes in post-1950s Asian-themed performances and adaptations of Shakespeare. In this Snapshot, Alexa Alice Joubin discusses the book and the importance of wider research into Global Shakespeares.