Asian Self-Representation at World’s Fairs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
World's Fairs ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
The West ◽  
Modes Of Representation ◽  
National Representation ◽  
International Expositions ◽  
World’S Fairs

International expositions or "world’s fairs" are the largest and most important stage on which millions routinely gather to directly experience, express, and respond to cultural difference. Rather than looking at Asian representation at the hands of colonizing powers, something already much examined, Asian Self-Representation at World’s Fairs instead focuses on expressions of an empowered Asian self-representation at world’s fairs in the West after the so-called golden age of the exhibition. New modes of representation became possible as the older "exhibitionary order" of earlier fairs gave way to a dominant "performative order," one increasingly preoccupied with generating experience and affect. Using case studies of national representation at selected fairs over the hundred-year period from 1915-2015, this book considers both the politics of representation as well as what happens within the imaginative worlds of Asian country pavilions, where the performative has become the dominant mode for imprinting directly on human bodies.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Peterson
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
World's Fairs ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The West ◽  
Corporate Power ◽  
International Expositions ◽  
The Future ◽  
World’S Fairs ◽  
State Functions

While diminished audience numbers and the impossible scale of resources required to successfully pull off international expositions over the last fifty years suggests that their days are numbered in the West, the extraordinary draw of the 2010 Shanghai Expo (73.1 million) demonstrates that the form is far from dead. The massive resources that flowed into that expo and the 2020 Dubai Exposition would suggest that top-down economies, ones where the state functions as the seat of corporate power, can create an attractive platform for any ambitious nation to seek out a seat at the table. The future of representation at world’s fairs may thus be more about ‘nationalising the sell’ than representing nation.

Mexico in World Expositions and Fairs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
World's Fairs ◽  
Political Life ◽  
International Expositions ◽  
Investment Opportunities ◽  
World’S Fairs ◽  
Trade Shows

Mexico’s involvement in world’s fairs and other international expositions is examined. From 1867 to 1929, governments promoted nationalism and industrialization through world’s fairs in Europe and international expositions in America. Mexico, which had recently achieved independence from Spain, became involved in these fairs to bolster its economy and image, competing with other nations to sell local goods and offer investment opportunities to foreigners. Since 1850, Mexicans have encouraged commerce and industry while enthusiastically marketing their country as a tourist “wonderland.” Accounts of Mexico’s participation in world’s fairs draw attention to the imperialism embedded in such events, suggesting that they were deeply problematic. Defined as cultural palaces and trade shows, fairs have chronicled changing ideas about nationalism, modernity, and, more recently, branding. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, Mexicans have recognized their strategic importance, although a persistent theme in the literature is that these are inherently tiresome and expensive undertakings and a significant drain on economic and political life.

Fair Encounters: Bulgaria and the “West” at International Exhibitions from Plovdiv to St. Louis

Slavic Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-570
Author(s):  
Mary Neuburger
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
National Identity ◽  
World's Fairs ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
International Exhibitions ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
World’S Fairs ◽  
Intellectual Elites

By the late nineteenth century, world's fairs had captured the imagination of Bulgarian political and intellectual elites. Bulgarians were not only enthusiastic pilgrims to the major world's fairs in the west, but by 1892 they had staged their own international trade exhibition in Plovdiv. Here, as elsewhere, the fair phenomenon was an arena for broadcasting messages of national prowess and progress, as well as a context for the performance and contestation of national identity. But for Bulgarians the fair phenomenon at home and abroad was also part of a highly contested process of negotiating its unique place between east and west, politically, economically, and culturally. The tensions and dilemmas that characterized the Plovdiv fair experience were also palpable in Bulgarian participation in fairs abroad, such as the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and the St. Louis Fair of 1904, where both the nation and the west were yet again reimagined.

The Souls of Muslim Folk

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-86
Author(s):  
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Dark Phase ◽  
The West ◽  
European Culture

The current debate on the vices of multiculturalism and the merits of integration, of problematizing cultural difference, appears to miss important lessons from recent history in the treatment of minorities. In this paper, I start by questioning the celebration of Barack Obama’s election as a “breakthrough” for multicultural inclusiveness. I argue that the “Obama phenomenon” highlights the limits of democratic inclusiveness and sheds light on the traumatic experience of African Americans, who have been victimized precisely for seeking to assimilate. European Jews, especially in Germany, could not be accused of any reluctance to integrate either, and their contributions to European culture are legendary. But they also suffered grievously for their pains. Thus when the same xenophobic political trends traditionally hostile to the integration of minorities begin to vociferously demand that Muslims should integrate, this must be seen as a warning that we may be heading toward a very dark phase of race relations in the West.

World's Fairs on the Eve of War

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT H. KARGON ◽  
KAREN FISS ◽  
MORRIS LOW ◽  
ARTHUR P. MOLELLA
Keyword(s):  
World's Fairs ◽  
World’S Fairs
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