Doctor Jack Tsonis

Jack Tsonis has worked with the Graduate Research School since 2015 as a lecturer in the Master of Research (MRes), and coordinates the degree’s three core units with Dr Alex Norman. Jack is is dedicated to high quality learning and teaching, and along with Dr Norman has developed the MRes into a world-class research training degree. Jack is committed to the field of postgraduate education, and believes strongly in treating HDR students as colleagues at the start of their journey of professional development.

Jack is also the founder of the Sauna Studies @ Western Sydney research group, which is launching a new research agenda in Australia to investigate the health and social benefits of sauna (and other types of thermic bathing). Sauna is anecdotally known to be an extremely healthy technology, and such health claims are increasingly being supported by modern science. In addition to working with leaders in this field such as Jari Laukkanen, Jack is spearheading efforts to grow both academic knowledge and public awareness about the role of sauna as a wellness technology in the twenty-first century. Jack is particularly interested in social-scientific investigations of sauna, as this area is not as well established as health research. See Tsonis (2016) for more information about the field of Sauna Studies.

Jack is also founder and president of ASBA, the Australian Sweat Bathing Association (est. 2016), a non-for-profit organisation designed to address the lack of sauna culture in Australia and to promote the practice more widely. ASBA is Australia's representative in the International Sauna Association (est. 1956), and is currently seeking Foundation Members. ASBA's motto is "Promoting Happy and Healthy Communities". For more information, please visit www.asbasweat.org   

Jack studied at Macquarie University, obtaining a Bachelor of Ancient History (Hons) in 2008 and a PhD in 2013. His dissertation combined perspectives from postcolonial theory, global history, evolutionary studies, sociology, science and technology studies, and the academic study of religion. For a while, he planned to turn his PhD into a book: namely a critical analysis of Western theories of social evolution from 1500 to the twenty-first century, with a particular focus on the contemporary "Axial Age" narrative of religious history. This plan is still in the dream queue. The whole thing got interrupted by the Sauna Studies agenda in 2015, when seeds first planted in Finland in 2007 finally came to fruition. For the long version of the story, see Tsonis (2018).

In addition to Sauna Studies, Jack has a variety of research interests, including but not limited to: human evolution; the cultural history of technology; discourse analysis; religious studies; historical theory; media theory; political theory; neoliberalism; democracy; gender studies; public health; food politics; sociology; psychology; humour studies; 'pataphysics; and the life and times of Rudi Konstanz.

Jack's proudest non-academic achievement is breaking the Guinness World Record for the World's Longest Handshake in 2009.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Tsonis.