Carla Blank will discuss how Storming The Old Boys’ Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America reveals key practices that have formed our present day cultural and architectural traditions, with particular focus on the life and work of Louise Blanchard Bethune--the first professional woman architect who designed Buffalo's own Hotel Lafayette.
Carla Blank is an Oakland, California writer, editor, dramaturge and director. Her most recent non-fiction book, Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America, is co-authored with Canadian architectural historian Tania Martin (Baraka Books, 2014). She is author and editor of the 20th century historical reference Rediscovering America (Three Rivers Press, 2003) which carries the imprimatur of Before Columbus Foundation, and is currently researching a companion volume on 18th through 19th century American history. With Ishmael Reed, she co-edited the anthology Powwow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction , From Then to Now (Da Capo Books, 2009), and was contributing editor on three other anthology projects edited by Ishmael Reed: Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003); MultiAmerica, Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace (Viking, 1997); and Califia, The California Poetry (Y’Bird Books, 1979). Her two volume anthology of performing arts techniques and styles, Live OnStage! (Dale Seymour Publications, a Pearson Education imprint, 1997, 2000), was co-authored with Jody Roberts. Still in print and widely referenced in U.S. and Canadian school districts, it is based upon forty years of collaborative performance projects with pre-schoolers through aged adults. Her essays on arts and culture have appeared in El Pais, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, Green Magazine, Hungry Mind Review, Konch and Counterpunch.
This is a free event.