Alexa Alice Joubin
Alexa Alice Joubin
Professor of English, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Cultures; Co-director of the Digital Humanities Institute, Middlebury College John M. Kirk, Jr. Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Lit
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Global early modern and Shakespeare studies inform Professor Joubin’s research on social justice. Her work also brings literary and critical AI studies into a conversation about modes of cognition. Her publications can be accessed on Research Gate.
As a comparative literature scholar, she works at the intersection of digital humanities and global studies across different cultures and historical periods.
Transitional Shakespeare, Adaptation and Gender (Cambridge UP) examines fictional and historical figures who create composite identities. The book uncovers what she calls transitional aesthetics, namely artistic and interpretive practices of thinking through trans and trans-adjacent experiences in the forms of cinematography, acting, and mise-en-scène.
Focusing on post-1950 adaptations, Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford UP) demonstrates how films and theatres offer site-specific vocabularies to understand competing narratives about gender, sexuality, race, and able-bodiedness.
Her book Race argues that racialized identities are profoundly constituted by exclusionary gendered narratives. From the medieval and early modern periods to the twenty-first century, these narratives attempt to codify inclusion and exclusion. The project studies race historically not only to find roots of modern racism, but also to discover other views that may have been obscured by more dominant ideologies.
Professor Joubin co-founded and co-directs the GW Digital Humanities Institute. She directed the Dean's Scholars in Shakespeare (a signature program of GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences). She is a faculty of the GW Trustworthy AI Initiative. She is also an affiliate at the NSF's Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society. She was named the inaugural Public Interest Technology Scholar. At MIT, she is co-founder and co-director of the open access Global Shakespeares digital performance archive. At Middlebury College Alexa holds the John M. Kirk, Jr. Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the Bread Loaf School of English.
Monographs
Transitional Shakespeare, Gender, and Adaptation (Cambridge University Press, 2026)
Shakespeare and East Asia (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Race, co-authored with Martin Orkin. New Critical Idiom series (Routledge, 2019).
Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange (Columbia University Press, 2009), MLA Scaglione Prize
Weltliteratur und Welttheater: Ästhetischer Humanismus in der kulturellen Globalisierung (Transcript Verlag, 2012)
Screening Shakespeare, open-access interactive textbook, 2026
Introduction to Critical Theory, open-access interactive textbook, 2026
Edited Books
Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare, ed. Alexa Alice Joubin (Bloomsbury, 2024). Introduction won the Barbara Hodgdon Award in 2026.
King Lear, ed. Michael Best and Alexa Alice Joubin (Broadview Press, 2023)
Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare: International Films, Television, and Theatre, co-edited with Victoria Bladen (Palgrave, 2022)
Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987-2007, ed. and translated by Alexa Alice Joubin (Palgrave, 2022)
Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance, co-edited with Aneta Mancewicz (Palgrave, 2018)
Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation, co-edited with Elizabeth Rivlin (Palgrave, 2014)
Book Series Editor, Palgrave Macmillan's "Global Shakespeares” series
Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeares, 3 vols. General Editor Alexa Alice Joubin, Associate Editor Ema Vyroubalova (Palgrave, 2021- ).
The Shakespearean International Yearbook: Mixed Race Studies, ed. Alexa Alice Joubin, Lisa S. Starks, Adele Lee (Routledge, 2026)
The Shakespearean International Yearbook: Disability Performance and Global Shakespeare, ed. Alexa Alice Joubin, Natalia Khomenko, Katherine Schaap Williams (Routledge, 2024)
Articles
."Finding Joy in Artificial Experience," Sociological Forum 41.2 (June 2026): 158-160.
.“Thinking Outside the Fridge: Specters of Artificial Experience,” Daedalus, open-access journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Fall 2026.
· "Transness as radical hospitality in academia: Field notes from an interloper," in Women, 'Failure' and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University, ed. Marina Cano and Rosa García-Periago (Bloomsbury, 2026), pp. 173-190.
· “The epistemologies of trust: Conflicting worldviews in the Trustworthy AI discourse," AI and Ethics 6.260 (2026). Co-authored with David A. Broniatowski, Zoe Szajnfarber, Susan Ariel Aaronson, and Ayah Zirikly. Joubin is the second author.
· “Shakespeare and Trans Studies,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, ed. Sonya Loftis (Oxford University Press, 2026), 1-18.
· "Are we post-colonial yet? Shakespeare and the ‘post’colonies," in Shakespeare in the ‘Post’Colonies: Legacies, Cultures and Social Justice, ed. Amrita Dhar and Amrita Sen (Arden Bloomsbury, 2025), pp. 205-218.
· "Specters of Hamlet and AI as RenAIssance Technology," The Folger Spotlight, May 6, 2025
· “Screening Authorship, Performativity, and Transness,” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Authorship, ed. Rory Loughnane and Will Sharpe (Oxford UP, 2025), pp. 793-812.
· “Gender and sexuality: The State of the Field,” Shakespeare Survey 77 (2024): 270-280.
· "Enhancing the Trustworthiness of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Responsive Pedagogy in the Context of Humanities Higher Education." In General Aspects of Applying Generative AI in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges, ed. Mohamed Lahby, Yassine Maleh, Antonio Bucchiarone, Satu Elisa Schaeffer (Springer Nature, 2024), pp. 207-220
· “Race and Trans Studies at the Crossroad: From Racialized Invisibility to Legibility,” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, ed. Patricia Akhimie (Oxford University Press, 2024), 195-210.
· “How AI Changes Shakespearean Theatrical Publics,” Shakespeare Bulletin 41.4 (2024): 529–553.
· “Performativity and Trans Literature,” Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature, ed. Douglas A. Vakoch and Sabine Sharp (Routledge, 2024), 29-39.
· “Trans as Method: The Sociality of Gender and Shakespeare,” Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, 14.2 (2023), open-access, borrowers-ojs-
· “Shakespearean Performance through a Trans Lens,” Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, 14.2 (2023), open-access, borrowers-ojs-
· “Collaborative Rhizomatic Learning and Global Shakespeares,” Reimagining Shakespeare Education, ed. Claire Hansen, Jackie Manuel, Liam E. Semler (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 225-238.
· “Interfacing Shakespeare Onscreen,” Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface, ed. Paul Budra and Clifford Werier (Routledge, 2023), 332-344.
· “Local Habitations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare Bulletin 40.3 (2022): 417-437
· "Shakespeare as a Digital Nomad: An Afterword," Digital Shakespeares from the Global South, ed. Amrita Sen (Palgrave, 2022), pp. 93-104.
· “Screening Anti-Asian Racism: Gendered and Racialized Discourses in Film and Television,” Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature 19.1 (March 2022).
· “Uncomfortable Bedfellows: Shakespeare and Global Studies,” Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare 40 (2022), doi.org/10.4000/shakespeare.
· “Performing Reparative Transgender Identities from Stage Beauty to The King and the Clown,” in Trans Historical: Gender Plurality before the Modern, ed. Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov, and Anna Klosowska (Cornell University Press, 2021), 322–349.
· With Lisa Starks, “Teaching Global Shakespeare Adaptations in Times of Hate,” Shakespeare Survey 74 (Cambridge University Press, 2021): 15–29. Featured open-access article of the year.
· “Screening Social Justice: Performing Reparative Shakespeare against Vocal Disability,” Adaptation 14.2 (August 2021): 187–205 (Oxford University Press); DOI: 10.1093/adaptation/
· “Global Mediation: Performing Shakespeare in the Age of Networked and Digital Cultures after COVID-19,” in The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance, ed. Peter Kirwan and Kathryn Prince (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 132–150.
· “Can the Biopic Subjects Speak? Disembodied Voices in The King’s Speech and The Theory of Everything,” in A Companion to the Biopic, ed. Deborah Cartmell and Ashley D. Polasek (Chichester, UK: Wiley–Blackwell, 2020), 269–282.
· “Global Studies,” in The Arden Research Handbook of Contemporary Shakespeare Criticism, ed. Evelyn Gajowski (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 247–261.
· “Global Shakespeare Criticism beyond the Nation State,” in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance, ed. James C. Bulman (Oxford University Press, 2017), 423–440.
· “Boomerang Shakespeare: Foreign Shakespeare in Britain,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, Vol. 2: The World’s Shakespeare, 1660–Present, ed. Bruce Smith (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1094–1101.
· “Global Diasporas as Reflected in the Work of Ong Keng Sen,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, Vol. 2: The World’s Shakespeare, 1660–Present, ed. Bruce Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1212–1219.
· “Global Shakespeare 2.0 and the Task of the Performance Archive,” Shakespeare Survey 64 (2011): 38–51.
- critical AI studies
- digital humanities
- Shakespeare
- critical race studies
- trans and feminist theory
- Asian and Asian American studies
- ethics
- globalization
- Asian-European cultural exchange
- film
- theatre
- Sinophone and Chinese literature
Digital Humanities Projects
Teach Anything, open-access AI for educators
Global Shakespeares, ATHE-ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Scholarship (honorable mention)
Screening Shakespeare, Shakespeare Association of America’s publics award (honorable mention)
Fellowships and Awards
Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Global Shakespeare, Queen Mary University of London and University of Warwick, UK, 2014-2015
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellow
ACLS / NEH research fellowship
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) grant for A Web Edition of Shakespeare’s King Lears
Modern Language Association Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Studies
Shakespeare Association of America's Barbara Hodgdon Award
Renaissance Society of America Paul Oskar Kristeller Fellowship
Popular Culture Association’s bell hooks Legacy Award
Public Interest Technology Scholar, inaugural fellow
Folger Library Short-term Fellowship
University of Essex (UK) International Visiting Fellow, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies
George Washington University Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Faculty Scholarship
George Washington University Humanities Center Fellowship
George Washington University Office of the Vice President for Research University Facilitating Fund research grant
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation publication grant
Stiftung Mercator (Germany) publication grant
CBC Radio Ideas Series: Sex and Gender in Shakespeare
World Bank Youth Summit: AI, Technology and Art
Presidential Inaugural Panel of Academic Excellence, George Washington University
“Humanistic AI as Public Interest Technology” Interview, JSTOR April 2, 2025.
BBC 4 Television
BBC Radio
The Economist
Voice of America
Foreign Policy
“Speaking of Shakespeare” Interview (Japanese Ministry of Education)
“Deconstructing Compulsory Realpolitik in Cultural Studies: An Interview with Alexa Alice Joubin,” The American Journal of Chinese Studies 28.2 (October, 2021): 115-130.
- AI and the Humanities
- Being Human
- Introduction to Critical Theory
- Global Shakespeare
- Shakespeare on Film
- Shakespeare, Race, and Gender
- Screening Gender
- The Renaissance on Screen
- Digital Humanities in Theory and Practice
- Decolonizing Shakespeare
- Critical Theory and AI
- Essential Shakespeare
Awards
George Washington University Joseph P. Dymond Distinguished Teaching Award
George Washington University Writing in the Disciplines Distinguished Assignment Design Award
George Washington University Martin Luther King Jr. Award
Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Stanford University
Joint degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Stanford University
B.A., English, National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan