Secretary General of Bureau International des Expositions to address participants

Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in Paris, will be the featured speaker at the World’s Fair Symposium that will be held March 30 to April 1 in San Francisco.

The symposium, sponsored by the Special Collections Library at California State University, Fresno (home of the Donald G. Larson Collection on International Expositions and Fairs, 1851 to 1940) will bring together world’s fair scholars and graduate students in various disciplines from throughout the world to discuss and share their ideas.

The BIE is an international diplomatic organization of member nations. Its role is to regulate the frequency and quality of international expositions held in member states. The current international exposition will be held in Aichi, Japan, from March 25 to Sept. 25, 2005.

Loscertales will travel directly from Japan, where he will preside over the opening ceremonies, to San Francisco, and will participate in the full World’s Fair Symposium.

Professor Robert W. Rydell, one of the leading authorities in the field, will open the symposium with a discussion on “New Directions in World’s Fair Scholarship.”

The two-and-a-half-day event will include nine sessions covering the breadth and diversity of world’s fair research. Topics are: Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism at Expositions in the “Motherland”; International Expositions: Microcosms of Ethnic and Cultural Stereotypes?; War and World’s Fairs: Myth and Propaganda; Identity, Gender, and Race in World’s Fair Architecture; Absence and Presence: Germany, World’s Fairs and the 1936 Olympics; Transformations in World’s Fairs; Design, Technology, and New Media: Influences on World’s Fairs; the Influence of World’s Fairs; Work in Progress; and World’s Fairs in Teaching.

For detailed information about the symposium visit www.lib.csufresno.edu/extra/wfs2005/.

For more information about the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, visit www-1.expo2005.or.jp/en/index.html.