Alexander Benjamin Craghead

Ph.D. Student - History of Architecture and Urbanism with a Concentration in Urban Geography

Research Interests/Specializations

I am a historian of technology, representation, and landscape.

I research the cultural intersection of meaning, change, and place, through both form and representation. I therefore study the built environment, the rhetoric that surrounds changes in that environment, and the visual depiction of place. I am particularly interested in the relationship between newness and age, especially in the processes of urban renewal, redevelopment, and gentrification, as well as the history and culture of the historic preservation movement.

The nature of my work is interdisciplinary, in that it combines history, geography, and art history. Presently, I study sites on the U.S. West Coast, as here, in the youngest of Euro-American cities, the constructed nature of age and obsolescence is more easily seen.

I am particularly interested in the ways that buildings, both intentionally and unintentionally, become arguments in larger cultural struggles, as well as exist as tangible evidence of real winners and losers in the making of place.

More broadly, I am interested in architecture as media, the role of the urban imaginary, and cities as cultural landscapes.

Degrees

Ph. D., Architecture, University of California at Berkeley.

M.S., Architecture, University of California at Berkeley

B. A., Communications, Marylhurst University

Certificate in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, Marylhurst University

Biography

I received by Ph.D. from the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley (August 2020). My research focuses on the role of arhcitecture in mid-century American urbanism. I received an MS Architecture, also from Berkeley (2015), and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Marylhurst University (2010), where I studied the interesection of political processes, public administration, and conflict theory.

My experiences prior to Berkeley include journalism, communications consultancy, and public policy formation. Additionally, I was hired as adjunct faculty by my alma mater, Marylhurst, to teach strategic communications, as well as to consult on academic and non-academic digital initiatives.

Presently, I teach at Berkeley in the Fall Program for Freshmen, where I am an instructor, and in the Program in American Studies, where I assist as a reader, guest lecturer, and act as online teaching support.

Courses Taught

(Fall 2020), Instructor, Making in America (American Studies X-AMERSTUD-10), Fall Program for Freshmen, Unviersity of California at Berkeley.

(Fall 2020), Non-Student Instructor, Everyday America (American Studies 10), Unviersity of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Christine Palmer.

(Fall 2020), Non-Student Instructor, Learning from Disney (Letters & Sciences 40E), Unviersity of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Kathleen Moran

(Spring 2020) Acting Instructor, The American Southwest: The Construction and Mediation of Identity. (American Studies AS102), University of California at Berkeley.

(Fall 2019) Teaching Assistant, Hollywood: The Place, the Fantasy, the Industry. (Letters & Sciences 40C), University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Kathleen Moran.

(Summer 2019) Teaching Assistant, Exploring the Liberal Arts (L&S 1W), University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Alix Schwartz.

(Spring 2019) Acting Instructor, American Studies: Senior Thesis Seminar (American Studies AS191), University of California at Berkeley.

(Fall 2017) Teaching Assistant, Hollywood: The Place, the Fantasy, the Industry. (Letters & Sciences 40C), University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Kathleen Moran.

(Spring 2017) Acting Instructor, American Cultural Landscapes, 1900-Present (American Studies C112B and Geography C160B), University of California at Berkeley.

(Fall 2016) Teaching Assistant, America at Play (American Studies 10), University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Christine Palmer.

(Spring 2016) Teaching Assistant, America at Home (American Studies 10), University of California at Berkeley. Instructors: Dr. Christine Palmer and Dr. Kathleen Moran.

(Fall 2015) Teaching Assistant. Frontiers in American History and Culture (American Studies 10). University of California at Berkeley. Instructors: Dr. Christine Palmer and Dr. Mark Brilliant.

(Spring 2015), Teaching Assistant. The Birth of Consumer Society, 1880-1910 (American Studies 101). University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Kathleen Moran.

(Fall 2014), Teaching Assistant. American Cultural Landscapes, 1600-1900 (American Studies C112A / Geography
C160A / Environmental Design 169A). University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Paul Groth.

(Spring 2014), Teaching Assistant. American Cultural Landscapes,1900-Present (American Studies C112B / Geography C160B / Environmental Design 169B). University of California at Berkeley. Instructor: Dr. Paul Groth.

Awards + Recognition

Draper Research Fellow, Joan E. Draper Architectural History Research Endowment Fund, 2016

Selected Publications

“Railroads, power, and technological stories in California,” California History 96, 2, Summer 2019, 6-18.

“Jasmine and the good life,” The Smart Set (web site), Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University, February 1, 2018.

“Remember this! A memory manifesto, for architects,” Room 1000 5, 2017, 53-56. (Co-written with Stathis Gerostthopoulos, Valentina Rozas-Kraus, Andrew M. Shanken, Desirée Valadares, Santiago Vales, and Mark Warren.)

“The (rail)road belongs in the landscape: J.B. Jackson and the photographic depiction of American railroads,” Railroad Heritage 47, December 2016, 14-35.

Railway Palaces of Portland, Oregon: The Architectural Legacy of Henry Villard (Charlotte, NC: The History Press, 2016). 208 pages.

“Amenities, Not Enemies: The Once and Future San Francisco,” Boom: A Journal of California, LA Review of Books Channel, July 29, 2014.