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Paris, 2003

Late-Antique and Medieval Cultures
Chair, Department of Art and Art History
Professor of Art History, Providence College

Vice President and Chair of Fellowships
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem  

email:  jbranham@providence.edu

Biographical Information:

2009-present:
Professor of Art History, Department of Art and Art History, Providence College, responsible for the medieval art history curriculum. 1999-2009,  Associate Professor; 1995-1999, Assistant Professor, Providence College.

2004-present:
Vice President (2006-) and Chair of Fellowships (2004-), W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem. Chair NEH and AIAR Fellowship committees, administer all fellowship awards in biblical studies, archaeology, religion, history, and art history.

2007-08:
Acting Director and Research Associate, Women's Studies in Religion Program, Harvard Divinity School . Scholarly project and graduate seminar: “Ritual, Gender, and Space in the Jerusalem Temple, Ancient Synagogues, and Early Churches.”

2003-2007:
Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, Providence College. Direct campus-wide program focusing on linking research and teaching for faculty.

2002-2003:
Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities
Visiting Scholar, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.

2001-2002:
Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer, Women's Studies in Religion Program, Harvard Divinity School. Scholarly project and graduate seminar: "Sacred Space as Gendered Space: Women, Blood, and Sacrifice in Late Antiquity."

1994-95:
Chateaubriand Postdoctoral Scholar, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris.

1993-94:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.

1993:
Ph.D., Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts and Art History Department, Emory University. Dissertation: “Sacred Space in Ancient Jewish and Early Medieval Christian Architecture.” Dissertation advisers: Thomas Lyman, Emory University and Richard Brilliant, Columbia University.

1988-89:
Interuniversity Fellow for Jewish Studies, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

1986:
Diplôme d'études françaises, Université de Strasbourg, France.

1985, 1983:
M.A. Religious Studies, B.A. Humanities, Florida State University; summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Current Interests and Research:

Prof. Branham's research interests include theories of sacred space, the relationship of gender, blood, and sacrifice in ancient Judaism and Christianity, the iconography of late-antique synagogues and churches, Byzantine art and architecture, and textual and visual strategies—ancient and modern—to emulate the ancient Jerusalem Temple.

Beth Shean site, Israel 1996

Courses Taught:

Teaching Philosophy:

"To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous."

-Confucius, Analects 2:15

The lust for learning is a contagious one. The Talmud says, "What comes from the heart, enters the heart." Indeed, when I teach from the heart, and not solely from the head, I am communicating to the students more than basic information; I am conveying a fundamental love of learning, itself. Once the desire for knowledge has been ignited in the hearts of the students as well, something transformative happens and students become masters of their own passion for learning.

Books :

Sacred Space Under Erasure: Gender, Sacrifice, and Architecture in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity , (New York: Cambridge University Press), forthcoming.

Articles in Scholarly Journals and Edited Books:

"Mapping Sacrifice on Bodies and Spaces in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity," Constructions of Sanctity:  Ritual and Sacred Space in Mediterranean Architecutre from Classical Greece to Byzantium, eds. Bonna Wescoat and Robert Ousterhout (New York:  Cambridge University Press), forthcoming.

“The American Archaeological Presence in Jerusalem: Through the Gates of the Albright Institute,” The Jerusalem Perspective: 150 Years of Archaeological Research, eds. Gideon Avni and Katharina Galor (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns), in press.

“The Temple that Won't Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando's Holy Land Theme Park,”  Harvard Divinity Bulletin , Autumn 2008, vol. 36,no. 3, 18-31; reprinted in CrossCurrents, Fall 2009, 358-82.

"Penetrating the Sacred:  Breaches and Barriers in the Jerusalem Temple," Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West , ed. Sharon Gerstel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 6-24.

“Women as Objects of Sacrifice?  An Early Christian ‘Chancel of the Virgins',” La cuisine et l'autel: Les sacrifices en questions dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne, ed. S. Georgoudi, R. Koch Piettre, F. Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 371-386.
 
“Hedging the Holy:  Walls as Symbolic Devices at Qumran,” Qumran The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates, eds. Katharina Galor, Jean-Baptiste Humbert, and Jürgen Zangenberg (Boston: Brill, 2006), 117-131.

“Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces: Menses and the Eucharist in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin , Spring 2002, vol. 30, no. 4, 15-22.

“Mapping Tragedy in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum,” The Tragic in Architecture (Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2000), 54-59.

“Blutende Frauen und blutige Räume: Menstruation und Eucharistie in Spätantikeund Mittelalter,” Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus , Band 3, 1999, 129-161.

“Blood in Flux, Sanctity at Issue,” RES Anthropology and Aesthetics , XXXI, Spring 1997, 53-70.

“Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues,”Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery , II, eds. DanUrman and Paul V. M. Flesher (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 319-345.

“Sacred Space Under Erasure in Ancient Synagogues and Early Churches,”The Art Bulletin , LXXIV, 3, 1992, 375-394. Received the 1993 Award for Excellence in Graduate Research in the Humanities, Emory University .

Articles in Museum Journals and Catalogues:

“Jerusalem in the Roman and Byzantine Periods,” in Ancient Jerusalem: People and Places, exhibition to open at the RISD Museum in 2010, forthcoming.

“Through the Lens of Children,” Montessori Children's House , Curator of exhibition of Children's Art (Providence: Montessori Children's House, 2001), 4-6.

"Ritual Elements in the Art of Barnaby Evans ," Exhibition Notes, no. 7, (Providence: The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 1999).

“Ot-Ha-Kalon -- Badge of Shame: Traces of Medieval Markings,” Exhibition byMarcia Cohen, (Atlanta: Marcia Wood Gallery, 1995).

“Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space,”The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery , LII/LIII, 1994/1995, 33-47.

Articles, Essays, and Interviews on the World Wide Web:

“The Temple that Won’t Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando’s Holy Land Experience Theme Park,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Autumn 2008, vol. 36, no. 3, 18-31.

"The Crucifixion and Ice Cream: Inside Orlando's most Unusual Theme Park, the Holy Land Experience," Newsweek.com, May 2008.

"The Holy Land comes to Florida as a Theme Park," The Harvard University Gazette, vol. 103, no. 20, March 20-April 2, 2008, 16-16.

"Joan Branham, Sacred Space Scholar," Not Your Classroom, Brown University BSR Radio Interview, Feb. 28, 2006.

"Sacred Space at Ground Zero," Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, Episode 601, September 2, 2002.

"Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces: Menses and the Eucharist in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages," Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spring 2002, 15-22.

"Blood in Ancient Judaism and Christianity," PBS, with Rev. Dr. Andrew McGowan, 2002.

"Ritual Elements in the Art of Barnaby Evans," Exhibition Notes, no. 7, (Providence: The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 1999).

Book Reviews:

Steven Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World:  Toward a New Jewish Archaeology, Journal of Hellenic Studies (forthcoming).

Simon Goldhill, The Temple of Jerusalem , New England Classical Journal (forthcoming).

Carolyn Osiek, Margaret Macdonald, w/Janet Tulloch, A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 112, no. 2, April 2008.

Michel Kaplan, ed., Le Sacré et son inscription dans l'espace à Byzance et en Occident, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 78, 4, October 2003, 1326-28.

Desmond Seward, Caravaggio: A Passionate Life, Providence: Studies in Western Civilization, 7, 2 Spring 1999, 210-211.

Steven Fine, ed., Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World, American Journal of Archaeology, 102, April 1998, 445-446.

Yoram Tsafrir, ed., Ancient Churches Revealed, American Journal of Archaeology, 100, January 1996, 194-195.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul 1999

Documentary T.V. and Film Projects:

The Bible's Buried Secrets - view clip, NOVA/PBS, On-camera Scholarly Consultant (2008). A scholarly documentary on the origins of the Israelites and the archaeology of the Bible.

The Trial of Jesus – view clip , The History Channel, On-camera Scholarly Commentator and Writer (2004). A scholarly documentary on the trial and death of Jesus. View Providence College press release.

Sacred Space at Ground Zero?, PBS, On-camera Scholarly Commentator(2002). Program on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly examining the debate over whether or not the site of the World Trade Center can be categorized as "sacred space."

Red Gold: The Epic Story of Blood – view clip, PBS, On-camera Scholarly Commentator (2002). Four-part series tracing the history of blood and its impact on religion, medicine, commerce, and popular culture.

Women Pharaohs , The Discovery Channel, Scholarly Consultant (2001). History of female cult--the Gods Wives of Amun--and women's influence and power in ancient Egypt.

American Byzantine, PBS, On-camera Scholarly Commentator (2000). Byzantine elements in Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.

Hagia Sophia , The Discovery Channel, On-camera Scholarly Commentator (1999). Byzantine architecture and Justinian in documentary on Hagia Sophia.

Qumran: Doomsday Cult , The Discovery Channel, Writer and Scholarly Consultant (1997). Research and writing of script on apocalyptic attitudes and context of ancient Jewish sect at Qumran, site of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Ancient Skywatchers , The Discovery Channel, Writer and Scholarly Consultant (1996). Writing and editing of script on sacrificial and astronomical practices of Mayan and Anasazi cultures.

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