According to "Webster's New World Dictionary," "ritual" is defined as "a set form or system of rites, religious or otherwise, especially occurring at regular intervals." One campus organization, though, is exploring the word from other perspectives.

Every year about this time, almost ritualistically, the University of Arizona Art History Graduate Student Association presents its annual symposium program.

The symposium always revolves around a theme and offers art history graduate students the opportunity to showcase work surrounding that motif. This year, the symposium's 13th time around, the theme is Defining Ritual.

"It can be difficult to explain the actual process of ritual," said art history master's student Katherine Vicars, also an AHGSA member.

The symposium attempts to classify ritual down from a number of perspectives.

Art history students will present scholarly work along with a keynote speaker, Babatunde Lawal, an established art history professional. Art history graduate student Kelvin Yazzie will perform a piece from 11:30 a.m. to noon in the fine arts complex courtyard, and the Lionel Rombach gallery presents a corresponding exhibition now through Valentine's Day.

"To me, the best part of the exhibition is the mix of mediums," said art graduate student Erin Hesser, a representative of the gallery. "It's a good mix of sculpture, photographs, paintings and performance."

The exhibition's featured artists are all graduate students chosen by the AHGSA, and some of the art explores the rituals artists go through to produce work.

"Ritual is a kind of universal thread," said Vicars, who pointed out that tooth brushing is a deeply engrained daily ritual. "Everyone is immersed in the rituals of everyday life. Learning about them gives us a way to relate to one another."

Last week, Mary Babcock - a featured artist in the Rombach exhibition - gave Vicars and the other members of the AHGSA a demonstration in ritual. She gave them tiny scraps of paper and had the students write something that was causing them stress on the scraps. She wadded them into balls; she burned them; she did a few elaborate things with wax; and in the end, the idea was that the stress be released.

"It actually helped," Vicars said. "Ritualistic practices can calm your nerves, or give you a sense of higher spirituality."

Another importance of the symposium is combining art with other fields of study, such as history and anthropology.

"We bring in people from all over the nation," Vicars said. "It's a great learning experience, and it incorporated speakers with artists and performers so well. So many diverse voices have converged to explore this one topic."

Beyond the scholarly and the professional, the symposium offers a window to the personal.

"One of the most important things you can get out of the symposium is self-discovery," Vicars said. "It gives a chance to see what rituals we do ourselves in our daily lives and what they might mean. We can also begin to look at where they came from and how they tie us to past cultures."

The symposium runs today from 8:45 a.m. to 4:20 p.m. in the Art building. All events are free and open to the public.