 Harkins is interested in prayer in the Second Temple and early Christian periods, the instrumental role of emotion in reading and ritual experiences, and the history of interpretation of scripture by both Jewish and Christian communities.Much of her scholarship has focused on the Qumran prayer collection known as the Hodayot (the Thanksgiving Hymns), but other texts of interest include the so-called penitential prayers from the Second Temple period; the Dead Sea Scrolls and Pseudepigrapha; the New Testament; and the Psalms and Odes of Solomon.Her interests also extend to Jewish and Christian relations in antiquity and in the modern period.