SU’s First Luce Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar, Laura Marsolek, Gives Presentation at Prestigious Indian University

Laura Marsolek (B.A.'13, M.A.'15) presenting a guest lecture at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly, the Prince of Wales Museum) in Mumbai (Bombay), India.

Art History alum Laura Marsolek (B.A.'13, M.A.'15), SU's first Luce Scholar and a Fulbright grantee to Kosovo in 2013, recently presented a guest lecture at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly, the Prince of Wales Museum) in Mumbai (Bombay), India. Laura's lecture was titled "The Jewelry of Jodhpur/Marwar: At Court and in the CIty," for which she focused on 19th- and 20th-century portraits and photographs; jewelry being made today in Jodhpur; and on her own work as a jewelry maker/art historian with the Soni community/the sonars (jewelry makers in western India). Laura's abiding interest in jewelry shone brightly in her Honors thesis at SU, which won the best Humanities thesis award and was voted the best overall thesis in the Renée Crown Honors Program. During her Fulbright in Kosovo, Laura studied filigree jewelry traditions, and investigated religion’s role in adornment traditions and conflicting cultural ownership of the filigree craft among Kosovo’s ethnic groups.