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Expo Community Conversation
June 23, 2022 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free
Join us for this Expo Community Conversation event brought to you in partnership with the World Affairs Council – Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky, Global Ties, the U.S. Department of State and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Join us for a discussion on how we bring Expos back to the United States and do so in a more inclusive way that highlights our country’s diversity as a strength of our democracy. Expos, also known as World’s Fairs, are the world’s oldest and largest mega event, held every three-five years in host cities around the world since their inception in 1851 in London. Similar to the Olympics, which are world festivals of sports, Expos are festivals of culture, technology, innovation, design, and human excellence. Past Expos have seen a multitude of countries showcase innovations such as the mobile phone, the X-Ray Machine, and the ice cream cone.
Though Expos have not captured many U.S. citizens’ imaginations, for those who experienced the events within the United States and overseas the last sixty years, the experiences impacted simultaneously their worldviews and views of their communities.
The physical legacies of Expos in New Orleans, New York, San Antonio, and Seattle—four of the last ones hosted inside the United States, between 1960-1984—are well established. But the “felt” legacies are underexplored and powerful. With geopolitics rapidly shifting, these soft power platforms are critical to illuminating U.S. values to international audiences. We also have an opportunity to rethink how we bring Expos back to the United States and do so in a more inclusive way that highlights our country’s diversity as a strength of our democracy.
Join us for a conversation on a groundbreaking oral history project to explore the future of International Expositions and the United States’ role in them. The event will also feature Oral Historian, Anna F. Kaplan, PhD, and Paul Kruchoski, a career member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources for Public Diplomacy.
