UC Davis Art History Program

Happening today: the 4th Annual Art History Symposium!

This year’s theme is Visual Imperialism.

Speakers:
Madeline Madrid, second year MA student in art history, presenting her paper: “Making the Menagerie: Jan Breughel the Elder’s Entry of Animals into Noah’s Ark.”

Naomi Rodriguez, first year MA student in art history, presents ”Frank Romero’s Arrest of the Paleteros: Reclaiming the Chicano Identity.”

Lena Sakkab, second year MA student in art history, presenting her paper: “The Odalisque Captured in Yusef Nabil’s Photographs”

Arzoo Thaker, third year Ph.D. student in French and Francophone Studies, presents “Unarchiving the Archives: Reclaiming Subjecthood in La Noire de...”

Friday, April 3 from 12-2 in Everson 157. We will start the event with a light reception at 11:30 in Everson 163

See you there!

New Art History course this spring!
Viewing Animals in Early Modern Europe (AHI 190I/290)
Prof. Michael Yonan, Th. 12:10-3 pm

What was it like to be a nonhuman creature in early modern Europe? How did human beings understand animals, their lives, their minds, and their place in the cosmos? What does art reveal about the human-animal relationship? This seminar will inquire into how art
relates to animal histories. Our readings will draw from classic texts about animal subjectivity (Berger, Nagel), from the interdisciplinary field of critical animal studies (Fraiman, Haraway, Derrida) and from art history specifically (Cohen, Gren, Hornstein, Freund, among others). Students will select a work of art representing an animal and produce a quarter-long research project on it.

Prerequisite: AH major; MA status; or instructor’s consent.

Image: Antoine Watteau, Sheet of Studies of Two Men and Cats, 1710s (Musée Bonnat, Bayonne)

Listen to Professors Talinn Grigor and Houri Berberian on the Society for Armenian Studies Podcast as they discuss their book The Armenian Woman with host Bedros Torosian.

https://www.podbean.com/pw/pbblog-igg64-5074e7

Professor Katharine Burnett recently traveled to Malaysia to conduct site research. She visited a private collection near the Straights of Melaka, where all ships had to sail between the East and the West, and interviewed experts on the spread of tea culture in Kuala Lumpur. And of course, she visited some amazing museums!

Asian culture is tea culture and tea culture is art.

Photos:
1. At Bukit Caves, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with local tea expert Ho Keon Leong and Bob Moustakas.
2. Pouring tea from an Yixing ware teapot made in China for the Japanese market, into a porcelain teacup from Jingdezhen, China’s porcelain capital during the Ming dynasty. Also shown: a Jian-ware tea bowl for matcha from the Northern Song, and a horse-hoof shaped porcelain teacup (Jingdezhen) from the early Qing dynasty.
3. Teh Tarik barista. Did you know that the work “tea” derives from a Fujian language for tea? Regions that use it received their tea through the maritime trade routes. Hello Melaka!
4. A trip to the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to underscore the importance of Islam and the interconnected relationship
of people and cultures through the straits of Melaka.

Professor Michael Yonan took a break from researching at the library of the Central Institute of Art History to visit the court theater of Munich, designed by François de Cuvilliés in 1751-1753.