Meet me in St. Louis, meet me at the fair.
Sep. 9th, 2012 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI’ve been thinking more about my idea for a class on the spirit of carnival. While I think it’s a good idea for a class, I don’t think it’s the class that I should design for my final project for American Sacred Space, because the temporal dimension of carnival really seems much stronger than the spatial.
Therefore, I’ve turned to my second idea: Pageants of International Brotherhood, that is, places where countries come together to parade how they are totally capable of cooperating. There’s still an element of the carnival in this – normal, cutthroat international relations are set aside for a vision of cooperation, or at least less destructive competition. But it’s a much more focused topic, and the spatial dimension is much stronger.
The course would begin with the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 – it’s not American, I realize, but it’s the progenitor of this sort of thing – move through some of the more important American World’s Fairs (Chicago 1893!), touch on the Olympics, and end with the UN and Disney’s Epcot World Showcase (which is a sort of permanent World’s Fair).
UN and Disney’s Epcot were both created a while ago, I realize, but I can’t think of any place more recent that celebrates international brotherhood. Can anyone else think of something more proximate?
Admittedly, the temporal element is still strong here; most of these places were temporary. But so is the spatial, because the exhibitions and world’s fairs (and the UN and Epcot) were a sort of living model of the future – people saw in London’s Crystal Palace and Chicago’s White City a realized vision of a celestial future.
The Olympics admittedly don’t fit this criterion – no one looks at Olympic stadiums and cries, “The celestial future is made flesh before us!” – but I think it’s important to include them because the Olympics make explicit the element of competition, which is implicit in the World’s Fairs. Implicit may be the wrong word: it’s not like the World’s Fairs were trying to hide competition, but to channel competition into constructive lines. Their competition is less obvious and dramatic than Olympic competition.
Therefore, I’ve turned to my second idea: Pageants of International Brotherhood, that is, places where countries come together to parade how they are totally capable of cooperating. There’s still an element of the carnival in this – normal, cutthroat international relations are set aside for a vision of cooperation, or at least less destructive competition. But it’s a much more focused topic, and the spatial dimension is much stronger.
The course would begin with the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 – it’s not American, I realize, but it’s the progenitor of this sort of thing – move through some of the more important American World’s Fairs (Chicago 1893!), touch on the Olympics, and end with the UN and Disney’s Epcot World Showcase (which is a sort of permanent World’s Fair).
UN and Disney’s Epcot were both created a while ago, I realize, but I can’t think of any place more recent that celebrates international brotherhood. Can anyone else think of something more proximate?
Admittedly, the temporal element is still strong here; most of these places were temporary. But so is the spatial, because the exhibitions and world’s fairs (and the UN and Epcot) were a sort of living model of the future – people saw in London’s Crystal Palace and Chicago’s White City a realized vision of a celestial future.
The Olympics admittedly don’t fit this criterion – no one looks at Olympic stadiums and cries, “The celestial future is made flesh before us!” – but I think it’s important to include them because the Olympics make explicit the element of competition, which is implicit in the World’s Fairs. Implicit may be the wrong word: it’s not like the World’s Fairs were trying to hide competition, but to channel competition into constructive lines. Their competition is less obvious and dramatic than Olympic competition.
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Date: 2012-09-09 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-10 04:06 am (UTC)