Abstract

Read today as a "bright and shining" moment, or as the "last good year" in Pierre Berton's estimation, a period that has since slid into the current crises of nationhood, Expo 67 is seen to mark a "turning point" in the complexion of the nation. This representation of history became entrenched as we passed through the thirtieth anniversary of Expo 67 and as monumental national events threatened to divide Canada permanently, producing a yearning for a simpler and better epoch when Canada was seen to be united. Man and His World attempts to rethink the unity 1967 is now seen to possess and challenges this nostalgic refiguration as well as theoretical concepts that regard the nation as a singular entity. Although Expo 67 was produced to unite Canada, fissures were present within the discourses on the nation as they were on the Expo 67 site itself. This thesis, which emphasizes the fragment, multiplicity and the surface, interrogates three sites at Expo 67 which show us that "'adding to' need not 'add up,' but may disturb the calculation" of nationhood (Bhabha, 1994:155): the Indians of Canada Pavilion, the Man in the Home Pavilion and the Quebec Pavilion. Each of these sites produced a challenge to the definition of the nation being performed in 1967, although not without problems. Man and His World investigates the possibilities and the limits of these challenges, while employing a methodology based on multiplicity, an attribute "thinking the nation" necessitates.