Joan Barbara Acocella (née Ross, April 13, 1945 – January 7, 2024) was a prominent American cultural critic, known for her insightful work on dance, literature, and psychology. She served as the dance critic for The New Yorker from 1998 to 2019 and contributed to The New York Review of Books for over three decades.

Acocella earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966 and went on to pursue a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Rutgers University, completing her degree in 1984 with a thesis on the Ballets Russes. Her academic accomplishments were recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993. In 2012, she furthered her academic contributions as a Holtzbrinck Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Before joining The New Yorker, Acocella worked as the senior critic and reviews editor for Dance Magazine and as a dance critic for the Financial Times. Her nuanced and erudite writing style was also a regular feature in the New York Review of Books. She began her association with The New Yorker in 1992 and was appointed as their dance critic in 1998.