In 1967, Montreal hosted Man and His World/Terre des hommes. By far the most successful cultural event ever produced in Canada, it was embraced by the public at the same time as intellectuals from Marshall McLuhan to Umberto Eco hailed it as a new type of exhibition for a new global age. Because it was held where and when it was – on a man-made archipelago in the St Lawrence River seven years into Quebec’s Quiet Revolution – Expo 67 also provided a prism through which the idea of the nation could be refracted and recast in original ways. Misunderstood by some scholars as an expensive exercise in official patriotism, while maligned by Quebec intellectuals as a crypto-federalist distraction from the real business of national independence, the fair nevertheless showcased Montreal as the de facto capital of a suddenly modern Quebec engaging with a late-modern world. Expo 67 and Its World proposes a reappraisal of the 1967 Montreal International and Universal Exhibition across a range of political, social, and cultural spaces: from the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and what was then known as the Third World, through the aspirations of Montreal, Quebec, and Canada, to the increasingly global ambit of youth culture, medicine, film, and finance. A new approach to understanding Expo 67, the collection challenges assumptions about the significance of the event to Canadian, Québécois, and First Nations history.

Expo 67, the world's fair held in Montreal during the summer of 1967, brought architecture, art, design, and technology together into a glittering modern package. Heralding the ideal city of the future to its visitors, the Expo site was perceived by critics as a laboratory for urban and architectural design as well as for cultural exchange, intended to enhance global understanding and international cooperation. This collection of essays brings new critical perspectives to Expo 67, an event that left behind a significant material and imaginative legacy. The contributors to this volume reflect a variety of interdisciplinary approaches and address Expo 67 across a broad spectrum ranging from architecture and film to more ephemeral markers such as postcards, menus, pavilion displays, or the uniforms of the hostesses employed on the site. Collectively, the essays explore issues of nationalism, the interplay of tradition and modernity, twentieth-century discourse about urban experience, and the enduring impact of Expo 67's technological experimentation. Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir is a compelling examination of a world's fair that had a profound impact locally, nationally, and internationally.

Expo 67, the world's fair held in Montreal during the summer of 1967, brought architecture, art, design, and technology together into a glittering modern package. Heralding the ideal city of the future to its visitors, the Expo site was perceived by critics as a laboratory for urban and architectural design as well as for cultural exchange, intended to enhance global understanding and international cooperation. This collection of essays brings new critical perspectives to Expo 67, an event that left behind a significant material and imaginative legacy. The contributors to this volume reflect a variety of interdisciplinary approaches and address Expo 67 across a broad spectrum ranging from architecture and film to more ephemeral markers such as postcards, menus, pavilion displays, or the uniforms of the hostesses employed on the site. Collectively, the essays explore issues of nationalism, the interplay of tradition and modernity, twentieth-century discourse about urban experience, and the enduring impact of Expo 67's technological experimentation. Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir is a compelling examination of a world's fair that had a profound impact locally, nationally, and internationally.

In 1967, Canada celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding with a spectacular party, and the whole world was invited. Montreal's Expo 67 was the first world's fair held in Canada, and it was a huge success, attracting over 50 million visitors. The 1,000-acre site was built on two man-made islands in the St. Lawrence River and incorporated 90 futuristic pavilions created by some of the world's greatest architects and designers. Over 60 countries were represented, along with many private, corporate and thematic pavilions, all brought together under the theme "Man and his World." With performers and entertainers of all varieties, restaurants, cultural attractions, exhibitions and a world-class amusement park, Expo 67 was literally the party of the century, exceeding all expectations.

Though Expo 67 looms large in our collective memory, it is often remembered nostalgically as a remote historical event. The conditions that made Expo an exceptional cultural moment are often forgotten: remarkable creative freedom was granted to artists, architects, filmmakers, and designers to experiment with technology and new forms, resulting in an incredible diversity of cultural production. Originating with the Musée d'art contemporain's 2017 exhibition, In Search of Expo 67 brings together original work from nineteen artists and new critical essays to explore the connections between archives and memory. Organized thematically, artists' words and works are put into dialogue with archival imagery that reconstructs key aspects of the original event. Works by Marie-Claire Blais and Pascal Grandmaison as well as Cheryl Sim explore the physicality of the artificially constructed Expo islands while texts and images rethink and remember key locales such as the Canada and Indians of Canada Pavilions. Expo influenced ideas about Indigenous Canadians at home and abroad at the advent of a new political and cultural conceptualization of Indigeneity: Duane Linklater's art reimagines Norval Morrisseau's seminal Expo mural Earth Mother and Her Children, while Krista Belle Stewart reconstructs a single frame of a short NFB documentary about Indigenous life in vinyl over a "classic colonial grid" of sixteen window panes. Artworks employ contemporary digital media and tools to explore key elements and experiences of particular pavilions. Janine Marchessault provides a history of film at Expo and its archival difficulties. The book also documents six original multi-screen large-format films from Expo 67. Contemporary work in film by Jacqueline Hoàng Nguy?n, Geronimo Inutiq, and Philip Hoffman and Eva Kolcze interrogates the official memory and narratives of Expo 67. The result is a critical rethinking and creative reimagining of Expo that shows how vital it remains over fifty years after it occurred, and the role of both research and creation in questioning and sustaining cultural memory. Brilliantly illustrated with original artworks and archival documents and images, In Search of Expo 67 revitalizes this utopian moment in Montreal's history as a site of unexpected tensions and immense creativity.

In National Performance, Erin Hurley examines the complex relationship between performance and national identity. How do theatrical performances represent the nation in which they were created? How is Quebecois performance used to define Quebec as a nation and to cultivate a sense of 'Quebec-ness' for audiences both within and outside the province? In exploring Expo 67, the critical response to Michel Tremblay's Les Belles Soeurs, Carbone 14's image-theatre, Marco Micone's writing practices, Celine Dion's popular music, and feminist performance of the 1970s and 80s, Hurley reveals the ways in which certain performances come to be understood as 'national' while others are relegated to sub-national or outsider status. Each chapter focuses on a particular historical moment in Quebec's modern history and a genre of performance emblematic of the moment, and uses these to elaborate the nature of the national performances. Winner of the Northeast Modern Language Association's Book Prize, National Performance is sophisticated yet accessible, seeking to enlarge the parameters of what counts as 'Quebecois' performance, while providing a thorough introduction to changing discourses of nation-ness in Quebec.