Lesoon '12 Awarded Fulbright Grant to Explore Middle Eastern Art in United Arab Emirates

Courtney Lesoon '12, an art history major with a self-created Middle Eastern Studies minor from Pittsburgh, has received a Fulbright grant to travel to the United Arab Emirates during the 2012-13 academic year. She will investigate perceptions of the Middle East as expressed in its exported visual culture. Her research will take place in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.

Lesoon aims to answer two mains questions through her research: What demands does the art market make on artists in the UAE, and how do these demands impact the type of the production called "contemporary art from the Middle East?" Her research will be comprised of a series of personal interviews, formal art historical analyses of contemporary art for sale, and auction results and gallery prices.

Following the Fulbright, Lesoon intends to continue her studies of Islamic art by pursuing a master of arts followed by a Ph.D. in Islamic art history.

At Holy Cross, Lesoon was a senior advisor of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, participant in Model United Nations, and a student "captain" in Kimball Dining Hall.

Each year approximately 1,000 college students are awarded grants through the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship program in international educational exchange. Fulbright grants are made to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Since the program’s inception in 1946, more than 300,000 participants — chosen for their leadership potential — have had the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions.

Read about this year’s other Holy Cross Fulbright grant recipients: Joseph Cavanaugh '12, Mattea Cumoletti '12, Caroline Galiatsos '12, Daniel Geiger ’11, Eliza Gettel '12, Heidi Grek ’12, Jaeyeon Lee ’12, Maria Jaroszewicz ’12, George Matthews ’12 and Peter Renehan ’12.