Biography of Joanna Hubbs, Ph.D.

Joanna Hubbs, Ph.D., a European who has traveled extensively since her birth 85 years ago, is the president and senior editor of Transitionsabroad.com and has been helping select and edit copy for the website since 2007, after the passing of her late husband, Clay Hubbs Ph.D., the visionary founder and publisher of Transitions Abroad magazine in 1977.

In 2006, she retired as a professor of Russian cultural studies at Hampshire College, where she had taught since 1971, following her completion of a Ph.D. at the University of Washington. She received a prestigious Woodrow Wilson fellowship to pursue her doctoral studies.

Though offered positions by many prestigious traditional institutions of higher learning in the country upon completion of her Ph.D. in Russian Studies, Joanna was drawn to teach at Hampshire College, a very progressive institution, due to its strong stated commitment to free speech and social activism within the unique context of the 5-college consortium in Amherst, Massachusetts. Hubbs was one of the first faculty members hired at the college to help build a community of teachers and students — an environment in which learning, discussion, and debate would occur quickly and continually, formally and informally, in the classroom and out.

Dr. Hubbs has written extensively on Russian and European cultural history, literature, mythology, and folklore. Her controversial book, Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture, is an interpretive and suggestive study of Russian history tracing influences from prehistoric times through early 20th-century literature. Her book has been translated into Japanese and is frequently cited by scholars and included in syllabi for courses at prestigious institutions for higher education. Joanna received the 1989 Heldt Prize for Excellence from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies for her work.

Professor Hubbs created and co-taught courses at Hampshire College designed to challenge students to think critically, deeply, and beyond the superficial via imagination, intuition, and analysis. She taught some of the many great writers, thinkers, and mystics — including Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Pushkin, Bulgakov, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, Saint-Martin, Virginia Woolf, et al. — to Russian Cultural History, Russian Film, Mythology and Alchemy, the Elements of Myth in Modern Literature, Modernism and Film, and the French Enlightenment.

Senior Editor Joanna Hubbs, Ph.D., while a professor of Russian Cultural History and Literature, in her 40s.

Joanna was married for 48 years to former Air Force jet pilot, journalist, professor, and study abroad advisor Dr. Clay Hubbs, who left his teaching position at Hampshire College to publish and edit Transitions Abroad magazine full-time. The couple has lived and traveled worldwide, most often in a nomadic and spontaneous manner. Their son, Gregory Hubbs, continues to expand the TransitionsAbroad.com website — which has been inspired by family and independent travel as well as decades of living and traveling abroad in his own right. Joanna has traveled, studied, and lived abroad throughout more than 75 of her 85 years and would travel without end if possible.

Joanna was born and raised in Europe, spent several years in England, where she created mayhem when placed in "finishing schools," and lived and studied for several years in Switzerland, near the Lake of Geneva in Vevey.

Joanna speaks, reads, and writes fluently in five languages, including French and Italian. She lived for long periods in a small, rustic watchtower on a Tuscan hilltop town for over 30 years with Clayton Hubbs, with many long visits from family. Joanna has also lived and studied in France, Switzerland, and England (all for several years), as well as the U.S. coasts and central states. Joanna has traveled slowly and long-term in countries and regions such as Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, most every Mediterranean and Scandinavian country, Northern Africa, the Middle East, Persia, and many locations in North and Central America — not including the countless countries she has visited for shorter periods during cross-continental trips.

Hubbs has written two novels and is working on a third about the late, highly influential Symbolist and Early Modern French visionary poet and adventurer Arthur Rimbaud, whose voyages through Africa she physically retraced. Joanna has published short stories in Europe. She plans to continue fiction writing and poetry in retirement while completing her biography, which her son will edit and publish, traveling, and enjoying her insatiable appetite for reading, learning, discussion, speculation, and especially lively debate! Joanna tempers her intellectual intensity, boundless energy, and imagination with other pursuits, such as voraciously reading in multiple languages, cultivating a comprehensive and deep appreciation for the fine arts, sharing her French and Italian cooking with family and friends, enjoying fine dining, and having a passion for witty conversation and storytelling.

Dr. Hubbs is currently involved in selecting and editing articles for www.Transtionsabroad.com, helping to steer the editorial direction toward what she finds exciting and informative about any subjects and cultural activities she finds interesting for others abroad. To contact her or for interviews, please email her at senioreditor @ transitionsabroad.com.