Tim Oakes
Department of Geography
University of Colorado at Boulder
Campus Box 260
Boulder, CO  80309
303-492-5887
toakes@colorado.edu

 

Updated December, 2015

EDUCATION
1995. PhD, Geography, University of Washington.
1991. MA, Geography, University of Washington.
1987. BA, East Asian Studies, Colby College.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS and APPOINTMENTS
Current. Professor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Current. Director, Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder

2010-2015. Visiting Professor, Cultural Geography Group, Wageningen University, Netherlands.

2010-2012. Visiting Professor, Institute of Ethnology and Sociology, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang, China.

2007-2010. Chair, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder.

2003-2008. Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, Guizhou Nationalities Institute, Guiyang, China.
2003-2004. Visiting Research Scholar, Institute for International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney.
1996-2004. Research Fellow, Center for Research on Provincial China, University of New South Wales.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS (past 5 years)

Wang, J., T. Oakes, and Y. Yang (eds.). 2015. Making Cultural Cities in Asia: Mobility, Assemblage, and the Politics of Aspirational Urbanism (London & New York: Routledge).

Sin, H.L, T. Oakes, and M. Mostafanezhad.  2015. Traveling for a cause: critical examinations of volunteer tourism and social justice.  Tourist Studies 15(2):  119-131.

Oakes, T. 2015. Review of Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, edited by Emily Yeh and Chris Coggins. The China Quarterly 222 (June), 572-74.

Oakes, T., A. Ghertner, C. Lentz, J. Sturgeon, J. Wilczak, and E. Yeh. 2015. Book review forum: Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development.  AAG Review of Books 3(1): 45-53.

Minca, C. and T. Oakes. 2014. Tourism after the postmodern turn. In Companion to Tourism Geography, 2nd Edition, eds. C.M. Hall, A. Lew, and A. Williams (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell), 294-303.

Oakes, T. 2014. Review of Faith in Heritage: Displacement, Development, and Religious Tourism in Contemporary China, by John Shepherd. International Journal of Asian Studies 11(2): 224-226.

Oakes, T. 2014. Review of Cultural Heritage Politics in China, edited by Tami Blumenfield and Helaine Silverman. The China Quarterly 218: 572-74

Oakes, T. 2013. 乡村: 中国城市的游乐园 [The village as urban China’s playground]. 旅游学刊 [Tourism Tribune] 28(4): 3-6.

Oakes, T. 2013. Heritage as improvement: cultural display and contested governance in rural China. Modern China 39(4): 380-407.

Oakes, T. 2013. Review of Building Globalization: Transnational Architectural Production  in Urban China.  In Urban Geography 34(8): 1217-1220.

Oakes, T. 2012. Review of Tourism in China: Policy and Development Since 1949.   In China Information 26: 407-08.

Oakes, T. 2012. Review of Small Works: Poverty and Economic Development in Southwestern China by John Donaldson.  In The China Quarterly 66 (July), 194-96.

Oakes, T. 2012. Looking out to look in: the use of the periphery in China’s geopolitical narratives. Eurasian Geography and Economics 53(3): 315-326.

Klingberg, T. and T. Oakes. 2012. Producing exemplary consumers: tourism and leisure culture in China's nation-building project.  In L. Jensen and T. Weston (eds.) China In and Beyond the Headlines (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 195-213.

Oakes, T. 2012. Making an empty show of strength: media and the politics of discernment in China’s place branding projects. In W. Sun and J. Chio (eds.) Localizing Chinese Media (London & New York: Routledge), 161-175.

Oakes, T. 2011. Review of Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China by Pál Nyíri.  In The China Journal 66 (July), 194-196.

Minca, C. and T. Oakes. 2011. Real Tourism: Practice, Care, and Politics in Contemporary Travel Culture (London and New York: Routledge).

Minca, C. and T. Oakes. 2011. Real tourism.  In C. Minca and T. Oakes (eds.) Real Tourism: Practice, Care, and Politics in Contemporary Travel Culture (London and New York: Routledge), 1-11.

Oakes, T. 2011. Touring modernities: disordered tourism in China. In C. Minca and T. Oakes (eds.) Real Tourism: Practice, Care, and Politics in Contemporary Travel Culture  (London and New York: Routledge), 103-122.

Oakes, T. 2011. Laser tag and other rural diversions: the village as China's urban playground. Harvard Asia Quarterly 13:3 (September), 25-30.

 

RECENT PRESENTATIONS (Past 5 Years)
2015, August. Handbook on Minorities in China, City University of Hong Kong. Presented “Ethnic tourism in China.”

2015, June. “Discourse and Urban Space: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue,” 6th Urban Space and Social Life Conference, City University of Hong Kong.  Invited panelist.

2015, June. Making Cultural Cities: A Dialogue Between China and the World, City University of Hong Kong. Presented “Happy town: the governmentality of the cultural city in China.”

2015, March. Annual Meetings of the Assocation for Asian Studies, Chicago.  Presented “Dance machine: urban modernity from the bottom-up in Guizhou.”

2014, October. Vrije University Amsterdam, History Seminar Series: “Time machine: producing visitable pasts in rural China”

2014, June. Dairy Center for the Arts Boedecker Theater evening ‘Talk Back’ program, Boulder, CO: “Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case”

2014, June. Xi’an Jiaotong University, 20th Anniversary Presentation Series:  “Visualizing the new socialist countryside: aesthetic governmentality in rural China”

2014, June. 2014年中国地理学会“社会文化地理”国际高级研修班.  Presented “Rendered visible:  the governmentality of landscape” and “Provincializing theory: doing ‘postcolonial’ social & cultural geography.”

2014, June. 2014年中国地理学会“社会文化地理”国际高级研修班.  Panel discussion on “The rise of China and the challenges for social & cultural geography”

2014, February. Knowledge Production, Geography, and Representation. 20th Annual Critical Geography Conference, Boulder, CO. Invited discussant.

2014, January. National University of Singapore, Department of Geography Seminar Series: “New leisure cities, new leisure citizens: the urban revolution in China.”

2014, January. National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute: “Urbanizing the Guizhou countryside: aesthetic governmentality, social ordering, and the exhibition economy.”

2014, January.  Leisure and Social Change: the Dynamics of the Transcultural Flow of Concepts, Institutions, and Practices across Asia, Heidelberg, Germany.  Presented “Leisure as governable space: transcultural leisure and governmentality in contemporary China”

2013, October. Wageningen University, Wageningen Geography Lecture: “New leisure cities, new leisure citizens: the urban revolution in China.”

2013, July. University of Heidelberg, Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe in a Global Context: “New leisure cities, new leisure citizens: the governmentality of urban reconstruction in China.”

2013, June. Guizhou Minzu University, College of Ethnology and Sociology: “Village reconstruction and the exhibition economy in rural Guizhou.”

2013, June, Zhongshan University Historical Geography Lecture Series, Guangzhou. “Social ordering in rural Guizhou: cultural heritage, village reconstruction, and the exhibition economy”

2013, June. 4th 4C5M Conference on Urban Heritage, Development, and Hospitality, Tongli, China.  Presented “Villagizing the city: producing governable space in urban China.”

2013, May. China, the Chinese and the World: Trajectories of Change.  Forum hosted by University of Notre Dame Kellogg Institute for International Studies.  Invited panelist.

2013, April. Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles, CA.  Presented “Leisure as governable space: consumption, citizenship, and governmentality in China’s leisure developments.”

2013, April. Engage public discourse? Geographers and China.  Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geogaphers, Los Angeles.  Invited panelist.

2012, October, National Committee on US-China Relations China Town Hall, Boulder, CO.  “A vast land of borders: China’s unsettled territory.”

2012, September, Wageningen University Cultural Geography Chair Group ‘Landscape Conversations’ Seminar Series. Presented “Leisure as governable space in urban China.”

2012, June, Leisure and Money: The Dynamics of the Exchange of Goods, Lifestyles, and Institutions Across Asia.  Boston University Center for the Study of Asia.  Presented “Leisure as governable space: tourism and consumer citizenship in contemporary China.”

2012, May, Guizhou Minzu University, College of Ethnology and Sociology: “Themed urban development: comparing American and Chinese cases”

2012, May, Guizhou Minzu University, College of Science and Humanities: “Rural tourism development in Guizhou: The case of Tunpu heritage tourism”

2012, April, Indiana University, Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business Spring Colloquium Series: “Faiths on display: religion, tourism, and the state in China.”

2012, February, Author-Meets-Critics: Building Globalization.  Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, New York, NY. Invited panelist

2012, February, Critical Theory and China Geography.  Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, New York, NY. Panel co-organizer and presenter.

2012, February, University of California at Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies colloquium: “Disordered tourists: on social ordering projects and their unintended consequences in China”

2011, December, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences Fall Seminar Series: “Faiths on display: tourism and ritual in rural China.”

2011, December, Laval Université, Quebec, Department of Geography Fall Seminar Series: “Heritage as improvement: cultural display and contested governance in rural China.”

2011, September, Geography Lecture, Wageningen University, Netherlands: “Laser tag and other rural diversions: the village as urban China’s playground.”

2011, May, Guizhou Nationalities University, College of Ethnology and Sociology: “The development of contemporary culture industries in the United States”

2011, March, Harvard University, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Chinese Religions Seminar: “Faiths on display: tourism and ritual in rural China.”