CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline: August 1, 2004

World’s Fair Symposium
San Francisco

March 30-April 1, 2005

The Special Collections Library at California State University, Fresno (home of the Donald G. Larson Collection on International Expositions and Fairs, 1851-1940) will be hosting a symposium on world’s fairs from March 31 to April 1, 2005, officially designated as a preconference to the Organization of American Historians (OAH) annual conference. Dr. Robert W. Rydell, Professor and Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University and scion the of the world’s fair field, is the co-organizer and academic adviser for this event.

The symposium seeks to bring together the disparate, diverse and disperse body of scholars who research, study, teach and write about world’s fairs and international expositions worldwide. As such, the main goal of the symposium is to provide a forum for scholars and researchers with wide-ranging interests, backgrounds and methodologies to share and perhaps cross-pollinate ideas among the best and brightest and the up-and-coming in the field.

Proposals from all types of researchers are welcome. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, the symposium is open to all disciplines, viewpoints and research methods. The format of the sessions allows for 10 minutes of presentation per speaker with the rest of the time devoted to discussion. Final, written papers will be required six weeks prior to the symposium and made available electronically on the Web (through a special password, for registered attendees only) so participants can come prepared for meaningful discourse and interaction.

Proposals for papers will be accepted until August 1, 2004. Proposals should not exceed one page and should be included with the presenter’s curriculum vitae with address, phone number and e-mail address. A final decision will be made by September 1, 2004 and all those selected will be notified shortly thereafter. Those chosen and invited to present will receive complimentary registration to the symposium. If a graduate student is chosen, additional assistance to help defray airfare and hotel costs may be possible but will be based strictly on need.

This call for proposals and the forthcoming symposium schedule and registration form will be available this summer at: http://www.lib.csufresno.edu/extra/wfs2005.

Please send proposals to Prof. Robert Rydell through the mail at:
Department of History and Philosophy
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717-0232

AND electronically via e-mail to Tammy Lau at:
tammyl@csufresno.edu.