Jean-François Staszak - Biography#
Jean-François Staszak received his PhD in Geography at the Sorbonne University. After serving as an Associate Professor in the Universities ofAmiens (Northern France) and Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris), he became in 2007 a full Professor at the Geography Department of the University of Geneva (Switzerland). He has been a visiting at UCLA, USC (Los Angeles) and the Complutense University of Madrid.
His early research focused on the history and epistemology of Geography, and then with economic and cultural Geography andf visual studies. His most recent work addresses geographical imaginaries in the fields of art and tourism, analyzing the geographical othering process and especially the Exotic. His understanding of the articulation of geographical representations, practices, and realities owes much to deconstructionist theories and to postcolonial and gender studies.
Among his recent books: Quartier réservé. Bousbir, Casablanca Genève, Georg (2020), Simuler le monde. Panoramas, parcs à theme et autres dispositifs immersifs, Genève, Métispresse (2019); Frontières en tous genres. Cloisonnement spatial et constructions identitaires, Rennes, PUR (2017); Clichés exotiques. Le Tour du Monde en photographies 1860–1890, Paris, De Monza (2015).
Among his recent papers : '« An Oriental town patterned upon movies concepts": China City, a tourist simulacrum in Los Angeles (1938-1948)', in M. Gravari-Barbas, N. Graburn and J.-F. Staszak (eds.), Tourism Fictions, Simulacra and Virtualities, Spatialities of Tourism in an Era of Complexity, London/New York, Routledge, 2019, pp. 156-180; ‘Exotisation et érotisation d'un haut-lieu et bas-fond touristique : la Casbah d'Alger (1840–1940)’, Teoros, 2018; ‘Tout ce que vous voulez savoir sur les sexualités touristiques ?’, Teoros, 2018; ‘Quand le cafard fait son cinéma: enjeux esthétiques et émotionnels de la mise en scène du cafard colonial dans le cinéma français des années 1930’, Carnets de géographes, 2016, 9; ‘Performing race and gender: the exoticization of Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong’, Gender, Place and Culture, 2015, 22, 5.
