Art History

Thank you for joining us for the “Art History and Comics,” a symposium that explored new UC Davis graduate student work on comics, graphic novels, and manga. We would like to thank our speakers Arcadio Bolanos (“Sexuality and New Identities in Alan Moore’s Lost Girls), Srđan Tunić (“Tea Gathering in Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo: Where Contemporary Comics and Japanese Tradition Intersect”), Xuying Liu (“What Should Chinese Youth Idolize?

Eleven faculty members from the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, including Professor Talinn Grigor, were recently awarded Revitalization Research Program Grants. Intended to support faculty whose research programs have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the college-funded grants support the continuation or completion of stalled, high-priority projects.

Over the quarter break, Professor Michael Yonan spoke at the conference “Rococo Across Borders: Designers and Makers.” The conference, held on 24–25 March 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, explored the geographical spread of the Rococo style, the interaction between designers and makers, and the significant role played by print culture in its dissemination.

Art History 102 students are presenting two exhibitions on the UC Davis campus during last weeks of the winter quarter. “Appetite for Change” and “Deadline: 11:59pm” opened this Tuesday, Mar. 14 at the Memorial Union and Katharine Esau Science Hall.

The Art History Club is seeking a new leader for the next academic year. The club is hoping to find an art history major with junio or senior standing who has completed at least one upper division art history course.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum has organized a day-long symposium exploring the global carving traditions from across the Pacific Rim that were influenced by, sat in conversation with, and had an influence on “Yankee” whaling scrimshaw.  The Wider World and Scrimshaw will be offered in-person or online on Tuesday, March 28, from 10:00-5:00 pm EST.

Join the Art History Club for their next scheduled event on Friday, Mar. 3. At 2:10 pm, the Art HIstory Club will host two art history grads — Leea Kramer and Sienna Weldon – to discuss their path into art history, graduate school and what their plans are post M.A.

This event, as usual, will be in Everson 148.

Please contact Layla Mitchell if you have any questions.

We hope to see you there!

Professor Talinn Grigor will speak at the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley on a book project that explores the history of Iran’s Armenian women from the beginning of Naser al-Din Shah’s reign in 1848 to the 1979 fall of the Pahlavi dynasty.

Join the Art History Club on a field trip to the Manetti Shrem Museum!

This Friday, Feb. 17 at 2:10 pm, the Art History Club will check out the current exhibitions at the Manetti Shrem Museum:

• “Mike Henderson: Before the Fire, 1965-1985″
• “Roy DeForest: Habitats for Travelers”
• “Loie Holowell: Tick TOck Belly Clock”

Please contact Layla Mitchell if you have any questions.

We hope to see you there!

On February 3, Professor Katharine Burnett presented “Mediated Meaning of a Magnificent Rock: Using Wu Bin’s Words to Understand His Painting” at the panel Ten Views of the Scholar’s Rocks: Ongoing Explorations of a Cultural Tradition at the Paragon Book Gallery in Beijing. 

Professor Diana Strazdes’ recent article “The Transformative Power of Spaces: Rembrandt Peale’s Patriae Pater and Lafayette in Philadelphia” has been published in the latest issue of the Winterthur Portfolio (Volume 56, Number 2-3).

Congratulations to Maggie Culuris-Harp (M.A., ‘24) and Sienna Weldon (M.A., ‘23) who will both present papers at the 19th Annual University of Oregon Graduate Symposium in the History of Art and Architecture.

Maggie’s paper — “Beth Alpha Zodiac Mosaic: A Jewish Diasporic Reaction to Roman Rule and Pagan Motifs”– explores the presence of Pagan religious iconography within the so-called Zodiac Mosaic at the sixth century CE Beth Alpha synagogue in present day Israel/Palestine. 

Professor Katharine Burnett will be interviewed live on two local radio stations this week to discuss the Global Tea Initiative and its upcoming colloquium on “Tea and Value.”

Srđan Tunić (M.A., ‘23) is the first guest speaker in the Pence Gallery’s Art History Lecture Series with his lecture “Plants, Insects and Art: Mary Foley Benson’s Scientific Illustrations”. Srđan’s talk stems from his internship at the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

Professor Michael Yonan has just published “The Judgment of Porcelain: Matter, Commerce, and the Figural Ideal” in The French Porcelain Society Journal 9 (2022), 23–45.