The symposium began as a way to give University art history students a stronger community and a competitive edge.

Now, the Second Annual Art History Symposium, which will be held this Saturday, is hopefully a mainstay and the work of more than just art history students.

Last year, the Art History Association created the symposium, which gives all levels of students the opportunity to present their work, because the presentation of art history papers is usually reserved for graduate students and professionals, said club advisor and art history professor Allie Terry.

‘It’s frustrating not to have an outlet [for our work],’ said AHA’s co-president and symposium presenter Mary Cabrera said.

Mark Zuzik, next year’s AHA president and a conference presenter, said the symposium gives undergraduate students a special experience.

‘You’re able to experience the scholarly feel before you have to,’ Zuzik said.

So Cabrera worked with Terry to get the club involved and they created last spring’s conference. They knew the conference could be better, so Terry’s art history capstone course used the symposium as an opportunity to gain professional experience.

The first half of the semester was spent learning about conferences by shadowing students and faculty involved with the Beholding Violence conference held at BGSU just before spring break.

Then the class work changed gears.

‘Now this is your moment to create your own conference,’ Terry said she told her students.

By watching the Beholding Violence conference take shape, the class was able to learn what they wanted – or didn’t want – as part of their own conference, Terry said.

‘With the practice of doing, they are learning,’ she said.

The class made a national call for papers that were about contemporary theory, which means the papers analyzed art using current themes. These themes led to the title of the symposium – New Perspectives in Visual Culture.

‘We have a completely different view of reality than the scholars we read,’ Cabrera said. ‘It’s very contemporary.’

Then the class did a blind critique of all the submitted abstracts. The abstracts were ranked and their ability to be debated, their strengths and weaknesses, and their ability to effectively present an argument in 20 minutes were considered. 11 from almost 30 submissions were chosen.

Cabrera had a run-through on Monday, but is still worried about her presentation.

‘I’m terrified that someone who knows more than me will say ‘That’s not right,” Cabrera said.

The papers are grouped into four groups.

‘We’re pulling things together that have connections you may not see,’ Cabrera said. The categories are visual gender, politics, how the artists use mediums and typecasting and consumerism.

So the presentations aren’t just about art. They’ll include information about many other topics too, like history, culture, religion and science, Cabrera said.

The new perspectives that the symposium will show are ‘anything that can define a culture,’ Cabrera said.

‘Unless you take the time to look … you’re not going to catch the [distinctions],’ Zuzik said.