Spring 2005 Anthropology 407/507
World’s Fairs as History and Anthropology
| Prof. Arif Dirlik |
CRN: 37857/59 |
| 361 McKenzie |
CLASSROOM: 201 Condon
TU 16--1850
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Phone: 346-4824
Office Hours: W 1-3 or by appointment
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E-MAIL:adirlik@darkwing.uoregon.edu
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World’s Fairs, or Universal Expositions, were among the most important public cultural events globally between 1850 and the end of World War II. They were celebrations of industrial society and colonialism, but also had cultural pretensions of their own as producers of culture. Analysts of public culture have ranked the fairs with museums, department stores and other public institutions emerging in the 19 th century devoted to the condensation, representation and marketing of an emergent industrial society that was global in scope and ambition. History and anthropology became important constituents in the organization and design of World’s Fairs. The Fairs themselves invite analysis by historians and anthropologists for what they aspired to achieve. In surprising ways, and for better or worse, the Fairs may help us better understand what we do in the University.
This course will examine World’s Fairs from both of these angles: their historical significance, and what they have to tell us about an emergent colonialist industrialism’s conceptualization of the world and its future, on the one hand, and what impact they may have had on the formation of history and anthropology as disciplines. World’s Fairs were global events, with global aspirations, and lie at the origins of the contemporary world of global modernity. They are also emblematic of the part that colonialism played, and continues to play, in the shaping of modernity. The major difference from the present is the openness with which the designers of World’s Fairs valorized both internal(nation-building) and external(national conquest)colonialism as an inextricable force of the modern civilization, and its global aspirations. The Fairs are important not only in a narrow academic sense, but for what they have to reveal about problems of modernity and globality.
This is a seminar where class participation is expected. The theme of the course is one that lends itself to research in original materials. Course requirements will consist of weekly 2-3 page reflections on the readings(30%)[to be handed in weekly in class], a class presentation on a particular Fair or the representation of a particular society(or ethnicity or gender)across several Fairs, addressing one of the seminar themes below (15%), a research paper[10-15pp for undergrads, 15-20pp for grads](40%), class attendance and participation in discussions(15%). Class presentations and research papers will be determined in consultation with the instructor, which should come very early in the term.
All the readings have been placed on reserve. Additionally, two of the texts will be available for purchase through the University Bookstore, R. Rydell, et.al, Fair America, and, Robert Rydell, All the World is a Fair.
Schedule of readings and discussions:
March 29: |
Introduction to the Course
Movie: “A World on Display”
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April 5: |
Fairs in the Making of Colonial Modernity
Robert Rydell, et.al., Fair America, entire book
Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas, pp.3-51 |
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James Gilbert, “World’s Fairs as Historical Events, ” in Robert Rydell(ed), Fair Representations
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Timothy Mitchell, “The World as Exhibition,” Comparative Study of Society and History(1989):217-236 |
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Gordon Reekie, “Expositions, Exhibits and Today’s Museums,” Natural History 73.6(June-July 1964):20-31 |
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Curtis M. Hinsley, “The World as Marketplace: Commodification of the Exotic at the World’s Columbian Exposition,” in I. Karp and S. Lavine(ed), Exhibiting Cultures, pp. 344-365 |
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Reference: John Findling and Kimberly Pelle(ed), Historical Dictionary of World’s Fairs and Expositions, 1851-1988
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Utopias of Techno-civilization/Celebrations of Capital
Aram Yengoyan, “Universalism and Utopianism,” Comparative Study of Society and History 39.4 (October 1997):785-798 |
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Helen Harrison(curator), Dawn of a New Day: The New York World’s Fair, 1939-1940 |
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David Nye, “Electrifying Exhibitions, 1880-1939," in R. Rydell(ed), Fair Representations |
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B. Schroeder-Gudehus and D. Cloutier, “Popularizing Science and Technology During the Cold War,” in Fair Representations |
19: |
Nation-building, Colonialism and Imperialism
Greenhalgh, pp. 82-173 |
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Robert Rydell, “Visions of Empire: International Expositions in Portland and Seattle, (1905-1909),” Pacific Historical Review 52.1(February 1983):37-65 |
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Peter Hoffenberg, An Empire on Display, pp.1-30 |
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Lisa Rubens, “Re-Presenting the Nation” |
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Sharra Vostral, “Imperialism on Display: The Philippine Exhibition at the 1904 World’s Fair,” Gateway Heritage 13.4(Spring 1993):18-30 |
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Russell Magnaghi,” America Views Indians at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis,” Gateway Heritage 4.3(Winter 1983-84):20-29 |
26:
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“Encyclopedias of the World” |
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G.Haines and F.H. Jackson, “A Neglected Landmark in the History of Ideas,” The Mississipi Valley Historical Review, 34.1(June 1947):201-220 |
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Greenhalgh, “The Fine Arts,” Ephemeral Vistas, pp.198-224
David Burg, Chicago’s White City of 1893, pp.235-285
David Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904, Vol. I., pp.544-552 |
| May 3 |
Fairs in History/History in Fairs: Commodities, Time, and Space
Robert Rydell, All the World is a Fair(entire book)
Michael Ames, “Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes”, pp.111-131 |
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Anthropology in the Fairs and the Fairs in Anthropology
David Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904, pp.522-534
Burton Benedict, The Anthropology of World’s Fairs, pp. 1-65
Burton Benedict, “Rituals of Representation,” in Fair Representations |
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W.J. McGee, “The Trend of Human Progress,” American Anthropologist 1.3(July 1899): 401-447
J.W. Buel(ed), Louisiana and the Fair: An Exposition of the World, Its People and Their Achievements
Aram Yengoyan, “Culture, Ideology and World’s Fairs,” in Fair Representations |
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Measures of civilization: Fairs and the global hegemony of techno-civilization
Joy Hendry, The Orient Strikes Back, pp.19-95
Michael Godley, “ China’s World Fair of 1910: Lessons from a Forgotten Event,” Modern Asian Studies 12.3(1978):503-522
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24 |
Representations and Self-Representations: Social classes, genders, ethnicities, and Others
Arif Dirlik, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism”
Greenhalgh, “Women: Exhibited and Exhibiting,” Ephemeral Vistas, pp.174-197
Barbara Vennman, “Dragons, Dummies and Royals: China at American World’s Fairs, 1876-1904,” Gateway Heritage 17.2(Fall 1996): 31 [please take a look at the whole issue]
Neil Harris, “All the World a Melting Pot? Japan at American Fairs, 1876-1904), in Akira Iriye(ed), Mutual Images, pp.24-54 |
31 |
World’s Fairs and Modernity: Spectacles, Commodity Esthetics and Cultures of Representation: Cosmopolitanism and Containment
Arif Dirlik, “The Colonial Modern in the Making of Global Modernity”
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, par.212-221
Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing, pp. 78-109
Dean MacCannell, The Tourist, pp. 17-37
Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum, pp.59-88
Wolfgang Haug, “Towards a Critique of Commodity Aesthetics,” in Haug, Commodity Aesthetics, Ideology, and Culture, pp. 103-127 |
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