Art History and Comics Symposium (UC Davis, 2023)

I would like to thank the Art History department at UC Davis, and especially our chair Dr. Katharine Burnett for making this symposium possible.

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Art History and Comics Symposium Program

Co-organized by Hunter Kiley, Xuying Liu, and Srđan Tunić

2:00 PM – Welcome, Art History Department Chair and Professor Katharine Burnett
2:10 PM – Introduction, Art History MA candidate Hunter Kiley
2:15 PM – “What Should Chinese Youth Idolize? – The National Image of Lu Xun in
Graphic Novels from 1949 to 1979,” Xuying Liu, MA candidate, Art History
Department
2:35 PM – “Tea Gathering in Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo: Where Contemporary Comics
and Japanese Tradition Intersect,” Srđan Tunić, MA candidate, Art History
Department
2:55 PM – Q + A Part 1
3:05 PM – Break
3:15 PM – “Hyouge Mono and The Aesthetic Potential of Manga to Represent Japanese
Tea Culture and History,” Hunter Kiley, MA candidate, Art History Department
3:35 PM – “Sexuality and New Identities in Alan Moore’s Lost Girls,” Arcadio
Bolaños, Ph.D. candidate, Spanish Department
3:55 PM – Q + A Part 2
4:05 PM – Closing Remarks, Hunter Kiley

Thank you for joining us today!

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Speakers

Arcadio Bolaños was born in Lima, Perú. He became an avid reader but also an
aspiring writer at a young age. In the past seven years, Bolaños has been
writing comic book scripts, and his stories have been published both in
print and digitally. Bolaños is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Spanish
Department at the University of California, Davis. His dissertation is about
masculinities and alternative/queer sexualities in contemporary Peruvian
narrative.

Hunter Kiley is a second-year M.A. candidate in the Department of Art and
Art History at the University of California, Davis. She is interested in
Japanese tea ceramics and utensils as well as representations of the
practice of Chanoyu in popular media like manga and anime. Her master’s
thesis examines James McNeill Whistler’s The Gold Scab and the problems of
genre in 19th-century portraiture and caricature.

Xuying Liu is a second-year M.A. student in art history at the University of
California, Davis. She previously focused on Chinese Song Dynasty political
history, the Song student movement, and the dissemination of public opinion
during the Song Dynasty, earning her M.A. in political history from Fudan
University. Her current master’s thesis research examines Lu Xun-themed
internet art, such as memes and spinoffs, that have become popular among
young Chinese audiences in the post-2010 social media era.

Srđan Tunić, a 2nd year M.A. student in art history at the University of
California, Davis, has a passion for researching contemporary art. His
interest in comics mostly revolves around exploring sci-fi utopian and
dystopian narratives, especially in the oeuvre of Hayao Miyazaki, Aleksa
Gajić, and Enki Bilal. His paper on Usagi Yojimbo takes a different approach
by addressing the representation of traditional cultural practices in Asian
American comics.