All BPL Presents programs at the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Cultural Center at Central Library are free of charge (unless otherwise noted) and reservations are required for most adult programs. Patrons with reservations will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Unclaimed reservations will be released fifteen minutes before the start of an event; we recommend arriving early. Patrons without reservations will be seated as capacity allows.
Reservations can be made 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week on our website by visiting the program’s calendar entry at bklynlibrary.org/bplpresents or by phone at 718.230.2200 (please see our phone reservation policy for hours and additional details). Reservations can be made up to approximately one hour before the scheduled program start time. The maximum number of seats that can be reserved per event is 3.
The Dweck Center is an accessible venue. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at the event, please contact BPLPresents@bklynlibrary.org.
Reservations for adult programs can be made with a BPL representative Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. For weekend events, reservations must be made by 4 pm on the Friday before the event takes place. Any reservations received after 4pm will not be processed. If leaving a message, please slowly and clearly state your first and last name, your phone number, the name and date of the program you would like to attend, and the number of seats you are requesting (maximum of 3).
University Open Air: Healing: Meditation on the Three-Syllable Mantra. A Simple Method of Healing Oneself and Others
The power of mantra is beyond our imagination, so is visualization. The combination of mantra recitation and visualization is more powerful. For centuries the three-syllable mantra meditation practice has been one of the key practices…
University Open Air: Tibetan Yoga: The Five Movements for Balancing the Five Elements in our Bodies
Learn five standing yoga movements that release tensions and blockages in our gross body and subtle energy channels. Physical movement, breath, and awareness are coordinated to harmonize our body, energy, and mind. These five movements especially open…
University Open Air: AI for Everyone
The headlines are filled with news about Artificial Intelligence (AI), making it difficult to separate hype from reality. AI presents many opportunities as well as challenges for our communities. It can help us solve complex problems, but it can also displace jobs and harm our civil rights if…
University Open Air: Mind Training: How to Deal with Destructive Emotions. Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and Methods
Students will learn some simple and effective methods on how to deal with negative emotions, particularly useful for when we are overwhelmed by those feelings.
…
University Open Air: Unlocking Subconscious Potential: Empowering Emotional Wellness and Stress Management
In this dynamic session, you will explore the transformative power of your subconscious mind. Gain insights into fostering emotional resilience, managing stress, and unlocking your inner potential for greater well-being in just one empowering lecture.
University Open Air: Sound Map of Salsa Music in New York. In English
In this lecture, you will explore the origins of salsa music in the South Bronx through its sound and its connection to the territory. You will discover the people who created the new genre from the traditional Latin music brought to NYC by the Caribbean immigrants who settled in the Bronx from…
University Open Air: Transform Your Life in one Week with Mystic Breathing, Meditation, and Healing Yogas
In this session, we will teach the body posture and four characteristics of mystic breathing first. Then we will learn to feel the mystic breathing. Then we will learn to feel the subtle sensations in our body…
University Open Air: Chinese Tea Ceremony
Chinese Tea Ceremony has rich history and different forms. Depending on the regions, we have various types of ceremonies. In today's ceremony, I will perform one of the authentic ways, to show you the beauty of it. Let's enjoy the ceremony; watch the tea leaves blooming; smell and taste good…
University Open Air: Healing: Ancient Tibetan Chod Healing Cleansing Negativities and Restoring Positivities
Chöd means “to cut.” Suffering that we human experience arises mainly through grasping at self and self-cherishing attitude. Cutting through this self-grasping and self-cherishing attitude is the main goal of Chöd practice. Chöd…
University Open Air: Beauty and Ugliness in French and Francophone literature and the Arts
French society’s obsession with taste shows up in many areas. We will examine some laudatory and critical devices used in some emblematic works to present the concept of beauty and ugliness, starting from XVII century literature and visual arts to arrive in modern times. Works from Madame de…
University Open Air: Conferencia: Mapa Sonoro de la Música Salsa en Nueva York. En Español
La lectura se realizará en español como un homenaje a todxs lxs inmigrantes afrocaribeñxs que llegaron a Nueva York en los años cuarenta y que, con su cultura y nostalgia por su tierra, crearon la música Salsa. Los participantes en esta conferencia recibirán el magazín Sursystem 08 en español, y…
University Open Air: Creative Calligraphy & Ink Wash Workshop
Traditional Chinese is the written script used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. In this interactive workshop, we will practice, write and discuss select characters in ink. Then, channel your creativity by integrating calligraphy into personalized ink wash paintings. Choose themes inspired by…
University Open Air: In Search of Lyricism
In lyric works, emotions are expressed through imagery, musicality, rhythm. Hence, reading and watching lyric works is a highly enjoyable experience. Yet, as the mermaids’ song, lyricism can draw us in to better drown us in what we’d turn away from: pain, grief, injustice, or our daily life.…
Celebrating Brooklyn Poets, Past and Present
Dip into the Center for Brooklyn History’s collection and you will find a vast range of poetry. There are works by household names like Walt Whitman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Marianne Moore, as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of poems by writers whose works live in the nooks and…
CBH Talk | Exploring “The White Bonus” with Tracie McMillan and Darrick Hamilton
White Bonus is the money white people receive or save when racism works in their favor. In her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America, Tracie McMillan asks a pressing question: If racism denies people of color so much, just how much does it…
CBH Talk | Ari Berman and Chris Hayes Discuss “Minority Rule”
As the United States moves steadily towards a majority-minority future, time and time again the white conservative minority has effectively pushed back representative democracy through voter suppression, election subversion, legislative power grabs, immigration restrictions,…
Viet Thanh Nguyen and Matthew Salesses Discuss A Man of Two Faces
Join BPL Presents for a conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen on his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger…
The People's Ball: STAND OUT/STAND UP!
A Night of Style, Imagination, Freedom and You!
You’re invited to THE PEOPLE’S BALL, Brooklyn Public Library’s free annual celebration of fashion, personal style and inclusivity. THE PEOPLE’S BALL, named Time Out New York’s Best Nightlife Event of 2023,…
Renée Watson on skin & bones, with Jennifer Baker
From the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a soulful and lyrical novel exploring sisterhood, motherhood, faith, love, and ultimately what gets passed down from one generation to the next.
At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with…
CBH Talk | Blackface Minstrelsy and the Racial Foundation of American Musical Culture
In his new book, Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States, musicologist Matthew Morrison unpacks the political legacy of blackface minstrelsy, showing not only how blackness was commodified by white people as popular entertainment during the nineteenth century,…
Frank Rich Delivers the 2024 Kahn Humanities Lecture
BPL Presents invites you to the 2024 Kahn Humanities Lecture with Frank Rich—a journalist, author, and television producer.A writer-at-large for New York magazine, he was previously chief drama critic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times. In this unique talk, he…
Xochitl Gonzalez on Anita de Monte Laughs Last, with Nurys Pimentel
Join New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez and BPL's own Nurys Pimentel as they discuss Anita de Monte Laughs Last.
Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her…
CBH Talk | Severe Mental Illness: Our Collective Response and Responsibility
Jonathan Rosen’s acclaimed book, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, has helped move the needle on our understanding of severe mental illness and the ways that society -- at the governmental, medical, and individual levels -- has failed…
Lisa Ko & Lisa Hsiao Chen in Conversation
In her new novel, Memory Piece, Lisa Ko, the award-winning author of The Leavers, offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Ko will be in conversation with friend and fellow novelist, Lisa Hsiao Chen, author of Activities…
CBH Talk | Natalie Foster and Tressie McMillan Cottom Discuss “The Guarantee”
The Guarantee asks us to imagine an America where housing, health care, a college education, dignified work, family care, an inheritance, and an income floor are not only attainable by all but guaranteed, by our government, for everyone.
But isn’t this pie-in-the-sky…
Colm Tóibín discusses Long Island
Join BPL Presents and the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Colm Tóibín as he returns to Brooklyn Public Library to discuss his spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex…
CBH Talk | Elizabeth Gloucester, The Most Powerful Black Woman Lost to History
Co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and The Brooklyn Heights Association
Elizabeth Gloucester, was born into slavery in 1817 in Richmond, Virginia. When she died in Brooklyn Heights six decades later, the Brooklyn Eagle described her as “the wealthiest colored…
Carnegie Hall Citywide: The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble
Brooklyn Public Library presents in partnership with Carnegie Hall: The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble. This always-evolving ensemble features a handpicked group of musicians from the historic Met Orchestra in concerts of remarkable ambition and variety. Adapting to fit the instrumental needs of…
Maggie Smith & Isaac Fitzgerald on You Could Make This Place Beautiful
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself. The book begins with one woman’s personal heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional…
Joel Whitney presents Flights: Radicals on the Run
Joel Whitney's genre-defying nonfiction work Flights creates an archetypal hero’s journey from the stories of progressive creators whose struggle for truth, and for freedom from persecution, sent them into literal and metaphorical exile. Whitney portrays a rich array of refugees all forced to…
Francine Prose Discusses 1974: A Personal History
Francine Prose comes to Brooklyn Public Library to discuss her first memoir, 1974: A Personal History, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers--and the year when our country changed.
During her twenties,…
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