Chai Why? - The Making of the Indian "National Drink"

Speaker: Dr Philip Lutgendorf, Professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies, Dept. of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Iowa

Engaged in a study of the remarkable role that "chai" has come to play in diet, social intercourse and public culture in India, the speaker will look at how changes in manufacturing, marketing and consumption, as also in urban space and social networks, have been responsible for the popularization of tea modified to Indian taste. The talk will focus on how advertising images helped to transmit the "tea habit", both prior and subsequent to 1947