De vroege wereldreizen van een theekopje

Outreach lecture by Prof. Anne Gerritsen (the talk will be held in Dutch). This lecture will be held in the context of the exhibition "Op de thee" / "Time for Tea".

The lecture

How and why did people drink tea in the past?  This seemingly innocent question can only be answered by looking not only a long way into the past but also across a wide geographical expanse. When tea first arrived in Europe, it already had a long history within Asia.  Tea leaves, but also the material culture associated with the production and consumption of tea, had in fact travelled across long distances, and had created connections between disparate parts of Asia.  This talk will explore the early history of tea culture in Asia, with special attention to the emergence of brown teawares in southern China during the Song dynasty, and the desire for these brown wares in Japan, where they became highly sought after cultural objects.  

The speaker

Anne Gerritsen holds the Kikkoman Chair of Asia-Europe Intercultural Dynamics, with special attention to material culture, art and human development at Leiden University, a position funded by the Kikkoman Foundation and the Vereniging van Vrienden der Aziatische Kunst.  She was trained as a sinologist in Leiden, Cambridge and Harvard University, and has published in the fields of global and local history with special attention to early modern China, women and gender, and material culture, especially porcelain. She is the process of completing a book-length study on the history of Jingdezhen, the city where most of the porcelain in the early modern world was manufactured.

The exhibition

As of September 6, 2014 the Princessehof Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden presents a grand exhibition called Op de thee. The exhibition is a journey through different tea cultures. For more information go to: http://www.princessehof.nl/timefortea