China’s Dairy Century: Making, Drinking, and Dreaming of Milk

BU Center for the Study of Asia presents:

“China’s Dairy Century: Making, Drinking, and Dreaming of Milk”
Thomas Dubois

Monday, October 30, 2017
4:00pm – 6:00pm

The lecture will take place at:
121 Bay State Road
Boston University

China’s dairy industry has of late become big news. A country that few would have instinctively associated with milk has emerged as the world’s third largest producer (following India and the United States), and second largest consumer of dairy. But the significance of dairy in China is not merely one of aggregate industry size, nor is its emergence of a wholly recent phenomenon.

Milk was not a major theme in China’s twentieth century, but it was a surprisingly persistent one. Looking back, one will see peaks of interest—a new dairy here, milk safety scandal there, and images of happy, milk-fed babies throughout. But do these very different sorts of events constitute a single story? This presentation examines China’s century of dairy as three distinct processes—production, consumption and culture—discussing each according to its own sources, standards and logic. Besides introducing a vital transformation within China’s animal industries, this talk aims to introduce some new ways to think about how we make, consume and think about food.

Co-sponsored by: Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences; Gastronomy Program, Metropolitan College