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Universal Expositions: Behind the Scenes and Beyond the Fairgrounds (Response Essay)

ABSTRACT This essay comments on the articles collected for this special issue about international expositions in France. It finds four major themes for new directions in exposition studies. First is the long literary and cultural shadow of expositions, or the shifting timescales that gave these temporary events lasting legacies. Second are the (often unintended) concrete consequences and costs for host cities of expositions understood as mega-events and mega-projects. Third is the inverse or obverse of ‘display’, those things that expositions conceal or hide. Fourth are the ways that expositions shaped and were shaped by the world beyond their gates.