Kostis Kourelis is an architectural historian and archaeologist. His fieldwork focuses on settlements, landscapes, and vernacular architecture; he has excavated in Greece, Italy, Tunisia, and Ukraine. Kourelis also investigates the intersection between  archaeological practices and artistic avant-gardes in the early 20th century. His recent scholarship focuses on refugee camps and deserted villages in Greece, on ethnic neighborhoods in American cities, and on labor housing in North Dakota. Publications include Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (1205-1955) (2004), “Byzantium and the Avant-Garde: Excavations at Corinth, 1920s-1930s” (2007), The Archaeology of Xenitia (2008), Punk Archaeology (2014), and “North Dakota Man Camp Project: The Archaeology of Home in the Bakken Oil Fields” (2017). Kourelis is the Arts and Humanities reviews editor of The Journal of Modern Greek Studies.  He has served in the executive board of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America and the Modern Greek Studies Association. He has received grants and awards from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Archaeological Institute of America, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and the North Dakota Humanities Council.

He teaches History of Architecture,  Medieval Art, Islamic Art, Migration Architecture, Archaeology of Home, and Lancaster Architecture. He co-teaches Introduction to International Studies (IST 200) and Constructing Sexualities (WGS 384). He is advisor to students interested in Architecture, Design, Urban Studies, Landscape Architecture, and Historic Preservation. 

Franklin & Marshall College, Associate Professor, 2015-present 

Franklin and Marshall College, Assistant Professor, 2009-2015

Connecticut College, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2008-2009

Clemson University, Assistant Professor, 2003-2008

Swarthmore College, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2002-2003

Ph.D. Art and Archaeology of the Mediterreanean World, University of Pennsylvania, 2003

M.Arch. School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, 1993

B.A. Philosophy, Design of the Environment, University of Pennsylvania, 1990

Licentiate in Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 2005

Architectural History, Archaeology, Byzantine Studies, Urbanism, Architectural Theory, Historic Preservation, Modern Greek Studies, Migration Studies

National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Grant, 2019

North Dakota Humanities Council grant, 2015 

Archaeological Institute of America, George H. Forsyth, Jr. Memorial Lecturer,  2007-2008

Princeton University, Program in Hellenic Studies, Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Fellow, 2007

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2004-2005

National Endowment of the Humanities, Summer Grant, 2004

“Zaraka Surrounded: The Archaeology of Settlements in the Peloponnesian Countryside,” in The Cistercian Monastery of Zaraka, Greece, ed. Sheila Campbell (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2018), pp. 193-213. 

“Flights of Archaeology: Peschke's Acrocorinth,” Hesperia 86, no. 4 (2017), pp. 723-782. 

“The Lidoriki Project - Low Altitude Aerial Photography, GIS, and Traditional Survey in Rural Greece,” with Todd Brenningmeyer and Miltiadis Katsaros, CAA 2015: Let the Revoluton Going. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, ed. Stefano Campana, Roberto Scopigno, Gabriella Carpentiero, and Marianna Cirillo (Oxford: Archeopress, 2016), vol. 2, pp. 979-988. 

“The North Dakota Man Camp Project: The Archaeology of Home in the Bakken Oil Fields,” with William R. Caraher, Bret Weber, and Richard Rothaus, Historical Archaeology 52 :1 ( 2017), pp. 267-287. 

“If Place Remotely Matters: Camped in Greece’s Contingent Countryside,” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 3:2 (2017), pp. 215-226. Reprinted in The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration, ed. Yannis Hamilakis, pp. 215-226, London: Equinox, 2018.

“Byzantine Houses and Modern Fictions: Domesticating Mystras in 1930s Greece,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 65 & 66 (2011–2012), pp. 297-331.

“The Immigrant Liturgy: Greek Orthodox Worship and Architecture in America,” with Vasileios Marinis, in Liturgy in Migration: Cultural Contexts from the Upper Room to Cyberspace, ed. Teresa Berger (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 2012), pp. 155-175.

Colors of Greece: The Art and Archaeology of Georg von Peschke (Lancaster: Phillips Museum, 2012), exhibition catalog.

“Splitting Architectural Time: Gómez + González Holmesburg Prison Project,” in Doing Time/Depth of Surface: Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González (Philadelphia: Philagrafika, 2011), essay in exhibition catalog.

“In the Comfort of Perpetual Abandonment,” in The Abandoned Countryside: (Re)Settlement in the Archaeological Narrative of Post-Classical Greece, special issue, The International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14:2 (June 2010), ed. Kostis Kourelis and William R. Caraher.

“From Greek Revival to Greek America: Archaeology and Transformation in Saint George Orthodox Cathedral of Philadelphia,” New Griffon 10 (2008), pp. 28-36.

“The Archaeology of Xenitia: Greek-American Material Culture, 1873-1924,” in Archaeology and History in Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece: Studies on Method and Meaning in Honor of Timothy E. Gregory, ed. Linda J. Hall, William R. Caraher, and R. Scott Moore (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 411-453.

“Byzantium and the Avant-Garde: Excavations at Corinth, 1920s-1930s,” Hesperia 76 (2007), pp. 391-442.

“Urban Legend: Architecture in Lord of the Rings,” with Steven Woodward, in From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, ed. Murray Pomerance and Ernest Mathijs (Amsterdam, 2006), pp. 189-214.

“The Rural House in the Medieval Peloponnese: An Archaeological Reassessment of Byzantine Domestic Architecture,” in Archaeology in Architecture: Studies in Honor of Cecil L. Striker, ed. Judson J. Emerick and Deborah Deliyannis (Mainz, 2005), pp. 119-129.

“Early Travelers in the Peloponnese and the Invention of Medieval Architectural History,” in The Architecture of Tourism: Perceptions, Performance and Space, ed. D. Medina Lasansky and Brian McLaren (Oxford, 2004), pp. 37-52

Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (1205-1955), with Frederick A. Cooper, Helen B. Foster, Mary Coulton, and Joseph D. Alchermes (Athens, 2002).

"From Greek Village to the American City," Elizabeth Wood '16, Cassandra Garison '18. 

"The Lidoriki Folklore Museum. Online Exhibition." Elizabeth Wood '16, Research Fair 2015.

"Old Glass in New Light: The Stained Glass Windows of the Lancaster Theological Seminary,” co-authored artice with Monica Giacomucci '12, The Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society 116:1 (2014-2015), pp. 2-35

"The Archaeology of the Greek House," Joel Neiman '15, Hackman Fellowship 2014

"The Hills Have Eyes: From Polytheism to Monotheism in Central Greece,” Joanna Radov '16, Independent Study and Summer Travel Award 2014 

"Suburban Modern: Commodities of Food and Play in a 1950s Lancaster Home," Independent Study, Central Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Art History Symposium 2014

"Hospital Architecture in Lancaster, Pennsylvania: A Case Study of Evolution of the Ambulance Bay," Melissa Band '14, Eli Schneck '14, Independent Study, Closer Look Research Fair 2014

"Byzantine and Bloomsbury," Judith Stapleton '12, Independent Study, Autumn Research Fair 2011

"Islamic Philadelphia: The Benson and Voorhees Mausolea of Laurel Hill Cemetery," Caitlyn Frank '11, Independent Study, Closer Look Research Fair 2011.

"Georg von Peshcke: Art into Archaeology," Bonnie Halloran '11, Hackman Fellowship 2010, Closer Look Research Fair 2011, exhibition at Phillips Museum and Bryn Mawr College 2012.

ART 121: Introdurction to Architecture I: Prehistoric to Medieval

ART 123: Introduction to Architecture II: Renaissance to Contemporary

ART 211: Islamic Art and Architecture

ART 219: Medieval Art and Architecture

ART 227: Lancaster Architecture

ART 364: Greece: The Art of Archaeology, with John Holgren, Summer Program

ART 375: The 1930s: Building American Modernity

ART 461: House, Home, Hood: Methods in Art History

CNX 150: The Digital City. First Year Connections Seminar