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History Hash Outs— Cultural Diplomacy on the Eve of War: The 1939 New York World’s Fair
History Department Conference Room 2144
AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74, New Cairo, 11835, Egypt
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Join us for a talk by James J. Fortuna, Associate Lecturer in U.S. History at the University of St Andrews, on Cultural Diplomacy on the Eve of War: The 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Promoted as the “last best chance for peace,” the 1939 World’s Fair in New York offered foreign governments a platform to showcase their geopolitical perspectives through national pavilions and exhibits. While often dismissed as sites of entertainment or commerce, this talk reveals how the Fair functioned as an international forum where nations used cultural displays to advance foreign policy goals.
Drawing on overlooked primary sources—letters from fairgoers, private photographs, and official reports—Fortuna explores how these exhibits shaped public perceptions and diplomatic narratives. This research spans archives from over a dozen institutions across five countries and challenges conventional views on diplomatic and cultural boundaries.
Speakers
James Fortuna
Associate Lecturer in the History of the United States
University of St Andrews
James J. Fortuna is an Associate Lecturer in the History of the United States at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses primarily on the twentieth century and is situated at the intersection of cultural and diplomatic history. He is especially interested in the architectural production of the interwar period and its relationship to the (re)construction of national identity. His previous work on twentieth-century U.S. history and the American experience can be read in academic journals such as White House History Quarterly, Fascism, and Environment, Space, Place. He has also published chapters in edited volumes and is currently at work on his first monograph, tentatively entitled Designing the World of Tomorrow: Cultural Diplomacy at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. He is a founding member of the Institute for the Study of International Expositions (ISIE) and grateful to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and the American Historical Association (AHA) for supporting some of the research that will be discussed in Cairo.