Prof. Dr. Julia Lossau

Assistant Professor for Cultural Geography at the Department of Geography at Humboldt University

Julia Lossau studied geography at the Bayerische Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and gained a first degree (diploma) from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1997. After having completed her PhD thesis on the ‘Politics of Location’ at Bonn University in 2001, she spent 18 months at the Department of Geography and Topographic Science at the University of Glasgow. Having been awarded with a Marie-Curie-Fellowship (European Commission) she was doing research on urban planning and public art in the context of a culturally revitalising city.

Between 2003 an 2005, she had a lecturing post at the Department of Geography at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. In January 2006, she became Assistant Professor (‘Juniorprofessor’) for Cultural Geography at the Department of Geography at Humboldt-University.

Research Focus

Julia Lossau’s research revolves around questions of urban geography. Based on her interest in the production of urban spaces in the context of the entrepreneurial city, she has more recently started to investigate discourses and strategies of sustainability in urban and regional development.

In doing so, it is important to her to contextualise the current challenges (like de- and reurbanisation, climate change and demographic change) by considering global economic and political developments as well as local problems and planning cultures.

Moreover, she emphasises the need to come to terms with different planning rationalities in a methodologically sound way. It is by working with actors as different as urban planners, business developers, imagineers, tourists and residents that her research gains practical relevance.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Julia Lossau, e-mail, tel. : +49-(0)30-2093-6882, www.geographie.hu-berlin.de/Members/lossau_julia