Brian Goldstein is a historian of the American built environment and an assistant professor at Swarthmore College. Previously, he was assistant professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico and an A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for the Humanities and the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2013.
Goldstein’s research and teaching focus on the history of urbanism, architecture, and planning, especially in the United States in the twentieth century. Specifically, he examines the intersection of social movements, political ideology, and the built environment; the spatial implications of race and class; debates over design expertise; the history of architectural and planning education; and the history of community-based organizations. Broadly, his work explores how people of different races and ethnicities, economic classes, and levels of formal training have imagined and shaped the future of American places.