BPL Presents is BPL’s curated cultural program, with arts and culture offerings including author talks, live performances, music, film and visual art exhibitions that explore the critical issues of our time in Brooklyn and beyond.
Center for Brooklyn History
Brooklyn's culture past and present from the Center for Brooklyn History
Upcoming
Oysters & the Archive: The Legacy of Black Foodways and Entrepreneurship in Brooklyn
For centuries, New York Harbor—including the waters around Brooklyn—was home to some of the world's most abundant oyster beds, making the city synonymous with oyster culture. Before the 20th century, when people thought of New York, they thought of oysters. This industry provided…
Plaza Concert Series: Swingtime Big Band
In case of rain, this concert will relocate to the Dweck Center, located on the lower level of Central Library.
Dedicated to the performance of America's greatest popular standards, SWINGTIME BIG BAND is a 20-piece authentic swing band comprised of master interpreters of music from the…
Sips & Scholars: Robyn Marasco on "The Authoritarian Personality Today"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: The Authoritarian Personality Today: Psychology, Politics, and the New Right-Wing Resurgence will be led…
Plaza Performance: DJ Max Glazer
Max Glazer has represented New York City touring the world DJing parties for superstars like Naomi Campbell, Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, Branford Marsalis, and Jay-Z, to name just a few. Separate from the glamorous celebrity parties he was known for, Max was always cultivating his interest…
Sips & Scholars: Robbie Howton on "Who Was Socrates?"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: “Who was Socrates?” will be led by Professor Robbie Howton.
The story of philosophy begins in…
Sips & Scholars: Alfred Lee on "Quantum Physics at 100"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: "Quantum Physics at 100" will be led by Professor Alfred Lee.
When Werner Heisenberg sketched the…
CBH Talk | Renewing Rikers: From Punishment to Possibility
The future of Rikers Island is one of New York City’s most urgent and complex political challenges. Once home to a Civil War-era military training ground, the island was purchased by the city in 1884 for $180,000 to serve as a garbage dump. In 1932, construction began on what would…
Sips & Scholars: Lauren K. Wolfe on "What is Translation?"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: "What is Translation? A Brief History of the Translator’s Task" will be led by Professor Lauren K. Wolfe.
…
Sips & Scholars: Nara Roberta Silva on "Revolution and Underdevelopment"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: “Revolution and Underdevelopment: Walter Rodney’s African Perspective" will be led by Professor Nara Robert Silva.…
Sips & Scholars: Ruth Averbach on "Too Many Wives: Polygamist Nightmares in Gogol’s Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: "Too Many Wives: Polygamist Nightmares in Gogol’s Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt" will be led by Professor…
Sandy Hudson Discusses Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All with Brian Jones
BPL Presents welcomes Sandy Hudson, author, activist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada to discuss her new book Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All. Hudson will be in conversation with Brian Jones, director of the Center for Educators and Schools at The New York Public…
Tribute to Nikki Giovanni with Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson
BPL Presents welcomes Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson, who lead this tribute to a true American original: the poet Nikki Giovanni.
When Nikki Giovanni died last December, the world lost one of its literary geniuses. A world-renowned poet and a key author-member of…
Miriam Toews Discusses A Truce That is Not Peace, with Rumaan Alam
BPL Presents welcomes internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews, whose memoir of the will to write is a work of disobedient memory, humor, and exquisite craft set against a content-hungry, prose-stuffed society.
“Why do you write?” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City…
CBH Talk | Howard W. French and Annette Gordon-Reed Discuss “The Second Emancipation”
Join us for a conversation between journalist and historian Howard W. French and Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Annette Gordon-Reed about The Second Emancipation: The Rise of Global Black Power and the Retreat of Colonialism. In this sweeping narrative, French interweaves the struggles of…
Peter Guralnick and Elvis Costello Discuss The Colonel & The King
BPL Presents welcomes celebrated music historian Peter Guralnick, returning with his new biography The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World. He’ll be joined in-conversation by Elvis Costello—a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and…
Art Spiegelman Discusses MetaMaus
BPL Presents is delighted to welcome Pulitzer-Prize winner Art Spiegelman to discuss the MetaMaus paperback.
In the pages of MetaMaus, Spiegelman re-enters Maus, the the Pulitzer Prize–winning modern classic that has altered how we see literature, comics, and the Holocaust ever since…
CBH Talk | The Erasure of Black History: Battling For America’s Narrative
This program is offered in partnership with The Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Black history is under siege. Recent political efforts to erase America’s deep-seated legacy of racial injustice have gained ground at an alarming rate. Many narratives of Black…
Tour of Tove Jansson & The Moomins
Join us for a guided tour of our newest exhibition, Tove Jansson and the Moomins: The Door Is Always Open, that explores the queer Finnish author’s impact on children’s literature and social-emotional learning through her beloved Moomin characters, bold political cartoons and reflective adult…
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Shortlist Reading & Panel
Join us for our annual BPL Book Prize Shortlist Reading & Panel, featuring the shortlisted authors for 2025 BPL Book Prize.
Each fall, BPL honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry. Selected by librarians and staff, who draw on their broad knowledge of literature and…
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Winners Reading & Panel
Join us for our annual BPL Book Prize Winners Reading & Panel, featuring the 2025 BPL Book Prize winners in conversation at the Brooklyn Book Festival.
Each fall, BPL honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry. Selected by librarians and staff, who draw on their broad…
Ken Follett Discusses Circle of Days
BPL Presents welcomes the bestselling author of epic fiction, Ken Follett, who brings us the deeply human story of one of the world’s greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge.
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that…
Colloquy: Emily Wilson & Luke Soucy on Translating the Epic
Please join World Poetry Books and the Brooklyn Public Library’s BPL Presents for the latest installment of Colloquy: Translators in Conversation, featuring translating the epic, with readings and discussion from Emily Wilson and Luke Soucy. Wilson will read from her translations of the Homeric…
Cory Doctorow Discusses Ensh*ttification
BPL Presents welcomes Cory Doctorow, to discuss Ensh*ttification, which argues that “it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can fix—or disensh*ttify—it.”
When Cory Doctorow coined the term ensh*ttification, he was not just finding a funner way to say “…
Brian Jones Discusses Black History Is for Everyone
BPL Presents welcomes Brian Jones, a longtime educator whose Black History Is For Everyone explores how the study of Black history challenges our understanding of race, nation, and the stories we tell about who we are.
Black history is under attack from powerful forces that seek to excise…
Lance Richardson Discusses True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen with Benjamin Moser
BPL Presents welcomes Lance Richardson and this first biography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement.
Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), a towering figure…
Vivian Gornick, Robin D.G. Kelley & David Waldstreicher on Boston Review at 50
Join BPL Presents as we celebrate the legendary Boston Review, as it turns fifty this year—with appearances by Vivian Gornick, Robin D.G. Kelley, David Waldstreicher, and others, who ask what is the responsibility of intellectuals now.
To commemorate this milestone, the review will publish…
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