Katharina Galor’s research focuses on the visual and material culture of Israel/Palestine and the Mediterranean, from antiquity to the present. Her work explores intersections of archaeology, architecture, and art with religion, politics, and identity. Areas of emphasis include sacred space and urban landscapes; Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interactions; gender and sexuality in religious and visual contexts; and the role of heritage in shaping historical memory and political discourse.

Her scholarship extends beyond classical archaeology into contemporary cultural history and public humanities. Recent projects examine the ethics and politics of representation, particularly in relation to exile, diaspora, and childhood in conflict zones. Her research draws on a wide range of methods—from excavation and architectural analysis to oral history, visual ethnography, and participatory art practice.

My research has evolved across several decades of interdisciplinary engagement with the material, visual, and spatial cultures of Israel/Palestine and the broader Mediterranean. Trained as a classical archaeologist, I began with a focus on Roman and Byzantine architecture, especially sacred sites and urban development in Jerusalem and its surroundings. These early interests were grounded in empirical fieldwork and traditional archaeological methodologies, which continue to inform my approach to historical landscapes and built environments.

Over time, my work has expanded to include critical heritage studies, with attention to the ideological uses of archaeology in constructing national and religious narratives. In both Finding Jerusalem and The Archaeology of Jerusalem, I examine how knowledge production around the past is shaped by competing political, theological, and institutional agendas.

In recent years, my research has moved into contemporary cultural history and public scholarship. Through collaborative projects such as The Moral Triangle and Out of Gaza, I explore the human experience of conflict, migration, and belonging—often through personal stories, visual culture, and shared dialogue. My current work on children’s drawings from Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza brings together art, trauma, and pedagogy to investigate how young people experience and represent war, and how their visual testimony can be ethically and publicly shared.

Across these diverse areas, I maintain a commitment to interdisciplinary and collaborative research. My work engages fields including Judaic studies, Middle Eastern studies, visual culture, and gender studies, and seeks to bridge academic inquiry with broader public discourse on memory, identity, and justice.

Katharina Galor’s research has been supported by a range of national and international funding bodies across archaeology, art history, Judaic studies, and heritage scholarship. She served as principal investigator on a major research initiative funded by the National Science Foundation, Promoting Paradigm Shifts in Archaeology, which received $2.7 million in 2008 to support interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeology and computer vision technologies.

Her work has also been funded by the Joukowsky Foundation, the Kress Foundation, the Biblical Archaeology Society, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Foundation, and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Berlin. She has received fellowships and project-based support from the Berliner Antike-Kolleg, the Chronoi Center of the Einstein Foundation, the Leo Baeck Foundation, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

At Brown University, she has been awarded numerous internal grants for research, curriculum development, and teaching innovation through the Humanities Research Group, the Watson Institute, Middle East Studies, and the RISD–Brown Collaborative. These grants have supported projects on sacred architecture, cultural heritage, and visual culture in Israel/Palestine and the broader Mediterranean.

Katharina Galor’s scholarly contributions extend beyond the classroom and academic press to include substantial public engagement through media, journalism, and collaborative cultural initiatives. She has been featured as a commentator in documentary films on archaeology and heritage in Israel/Palestine, offering expertise on the politics of excavation, sacred architecture, and contested histories. Her voice and scholarship have also been included in a range of podcasts, radio programs, and television interviews, both in the United States and internationally, where she addresses topics such as cultural heritage, religious pluralism, and the role of archaeology in public memory.

In addition to academic writing, Galor regularly contributes essays and op-eds to major newspapers and cultural outlets, including reflections on gender, identity, migration, and conflict in Israel/Palestine and Europe. Her public scholarship bridges academic research and contemporary debate, often drawing on personal experience as well as long-term fieldwork and cross-cultural collaboration.

These engagements reflect a broader commitment to making scholarship accessible and relevant across disciplinary, linguistic, and national boundaries.

1991                D.E.A. in History of Art and Archaeology magna cum laude

1991                "Ecole Française de Rome" Fellowship for the excavation of the Vigna Barberini in Rome

1994                Joukowsky Foundation Fellowship, Brown University

1995                Joukowsky Foundation Fellowship, Brown University

1996                Golda Meir Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

2001                Kress Travel Grant

2002                Kress Travel Grant

2002                The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Grant to Brown University. Pluralism and Unity Program

2002                Biblical Archaeology Society Grant

2002                Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities Grant

2002                Brown Lectureship Fund

2002                Brown Hillel Foundation Grant

2002                Watson Institute for International Studies Grant, Brown University

2002                Shelby White and Leon Levy Foundation Grant

2002                Research Grant from the Deutsches Archäeologisches Institut in Berlin

2003                Watson Institute for International Studies Grant, Brown University

2003                Salomon Research Award, Brown University

2004                Herbert H. Goldberger Lectureships Fund, Brown University

2004                Benjamin Adelman Fund for documentary on Tiberias Excavation Project

2004                Brown-RISD Hillel Foundation Fund for the Ramat Hanadiv Excavation

2005                RISD-Brown Institutional Collaboration Grant

2005                Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities Grant

2006                Watson Institute for International Studies Grant, Brown University

2006                Humanities Research Group grant for “Exhibiting Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic Jerusalem,” Brown University

2007                Humanities Research Group Extension Grant for “Exhibiting Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic Jerusalem”

2008                NSF Grant in Core Computer Vision Research: Promoting Paradigm Shifts in Archaeology

2009                Curriculum Development Grant for Brown course on Digital Art, Architecture and Archaeology

2012                RISD Professional Development Fund, for book project Finding Jerusalem: Archaeology Between Science and Politics

2012                NSF Extension Grant

2013                Brown University Middle East Studies Research Travel Grant

2014                RISD Professional Development Fund, for book project Finding Jerusalem: Archaeology Between Science and Politics

2016                Berliner Antike-Kolleg fellowship

2018                Chronoi Center fellowship, Berliner Antike-Kolleg

2018-2021       Leo Baeck Foundation Grant for book project The Play of Esther: Jewish Women between Conformity and Agency

2023-2024       Louis Apfelbaum and Hortense Braunstein Apfelbaum Fellowship, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Center for Middle East Studies

Program in Urban Studies

My teaching bridges archaeology, cultural history, and Judaic studies, with a focus on the intersections of religion, politics, and identity as they are expressed through visual and material culture. I design courses that draw on ancient and contemporary sources—from sacred architecture and urban landscapes to personal narratives and artistic representations—to examine the ways communities shape and contest historical memory.

Several of my courses focus on Jerusalem and Berlin as case studies for exploring sacred space, cultural heritage, and urban transformation. I also teach on gender and sexuality in Jewish culture, race and religion, and the role of public humanities in contested societies. My approach is interdisciplinary and comparative, combining close engagement with texts and objects alongside critical theoretical frameworks.

Many of my seminars investigate the political dimensions of archaeology and the ethical questions that arise in the interpretation and presentation of the past. Others address questions of exile, trauma, and belonging through the lens of visual culture, including children’s drawings, architecture, and visual testimony.

I encourage students to approach material critically and creatively, whether through classroom discussion, independent research, or collaborative projects. My teaching aims to cultivate a deeper understanding of how the past informs the present, particularly in regions shaped by historical complexity and ongoing conflict.