Asian Self-Representation at 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.

William Peterson is Associate Professor of Drama and head of the Creativity Research Theme in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Among his publications are Places for Happiness: Community, Self and Performance in the Philippines (Hawaii, 2016), Theatre and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore (Wesleyan, 2001), and chapters and journal articles on performance at mass events.

Acknowledgments, Note on Works Cited, Note on Asian Names, 1. Introduction: Setting the Stage, 2. The Master of the Form: Japan at San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 3. The New China and Chinese-Americanness: China at San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 4. Performing Japan in the 'World of Tomorrow': Japan at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair, 5. From 'Panda Diplomacy' to Acrobat Diplomacy: China at the Brisbane's Expo '88, 6. Fashion, Dance, and Representing the Filipina: The Philippines at the 1964-1965 New York World Fair, 7. Performing Modernity under Sukarno's 'Roving Eye': Indonesia at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, 8. Maximizing Affect, Minimizing Impact with Hansik: South Korea at the 2015 Milan International Exposition, 9. Hard and Soft Power in the Thai Pavilion: The Spectral Presence of King Bhumibol at the 2015 Milan Exposition, 10. Conclusion: The Future of Asian Self-Representation at the International Exposition, Works Cited, Index