BPL Presents

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. 

University Open Air

Free courses from global scholars

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A film festival about writers

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Center for Brooklyn History

Brooklyn's culture past and present from the Center for Brooklyn History

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Upcoming

Anna Shechtman on The Riddles of the Sphinx, in conversation with Kameron Austin Collins

Tue, Mar 19 6:00pm
Brooklyn Heights Library, Multipurpose Room

author talks book discussion BPL Presents

Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.

The indisputable “queen of…

Orchestra of St. Luke's Five Borough Tour: Valerie Coleman's Portraits of Josephine

Wed, Mar 20 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

BPL Presents classical interludes

Journey through the life of Josephine Baker with Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Josephine, a wind quintet dedicated to the iconic entertainer and her legacy. Playwright and actor Kirya Traber joins Orchestra of St. Luke's for the performances, weaving her original…

National Black Writers Conference Poetry Cafe

Thu, Mar 21 5:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

BPL Presents poetry

As part of the National Black Writers Conference, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College presents a poetry cafe featuring four amazing poets: Reginald Harris, Linda Susan Jackson and Anastacia-Renee. 

Brad Gooch on Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring

Thu, Mar 28 6:00pm
Brooklyn Heights Library, Multipurpose Room

author talks BPL Presents

Keith Haring was one of the most emblematic artists of the 1980s, a figure described by his contemporaries as “a prophet in his life, his person, and his work.” Part of an iconic cultural crowd that included Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Basquiat, Haring broke down the barriers between high art and…

An Evening with Rawlston Charles

Thu, Mar 28 6:30pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

Colloquy: Translators in Conversation with Raina, Rogers & Shyue

Tue, Apr 2 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

Please join World Poetry Books, Montez Press Radio and BPL Presents for the latest installment of Colloquy: Translators in Conversation, with readings and discussion from Kalpana Raina, Jacob Rogers and Jennifer Shyue on their recent translations for the independent, publisher of international…

ReelAbilities Film Festival: Left Alone Rhapsody - The Musical Memoir of Pianist John Bayless

Thu, Apr 4 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

BPL Presents film live music

Dir. Stewart M. Schulman

Documentary | English | US | 2023 | 100 min 

At 25, Leonard Bernstein's protégé, John Bayless, debuted at Carnegie Hall, launching a 30-year-long recording career as a solo pianist, composer, and improviser. At 54, after a…

CBH Talk | Could It Happen Here? America's Illiberal History, Fascism, and the Thin Line Between Them

Tue, Apr 9 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

BPL Presents Center for Brooklyn History conversations

Throughout America’s history an illiberal strain of political thought has existed within our democratic society, argues Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Steven Hahn in his new book Illiberal America. We see it today in White Nationalism, “America First,'' demonization of immigrants and…

Just Conversations: Medical Racism, An Issue of Life and Death

Wed, Apr 10 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

anti-racism author talks BPL Presents

About Just ConversationsJust Conversations is a series co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and Brooklyn Org that brings into dialogue injustices in our borough, city, and society and gives voice to the change makers who move us towards a more equitable future. First up: Medical Racism.…

Alice Randall on My Black Country with Charlamagne Tha God & Special Guest Rosanne Cash

Wed, Apr 10 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

BPL Presents is excited to welcome Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author, and country music legend Rosanne Cash, in a conversation moderated by Charlamagne tha God on Randall’s new book, My Black Country.

Country music had brought Randall and her activist…

Shubnum Khan Discusses The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years

Wed, Apr 17 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

Join BPL Presents in welcoming Shubnum Kahn to discuss “a dark and heady dream of a book” (Alix E. Harrow) about a ruined mansion by the sea, the djinn that haunts it, and a curious girl who unearths the tragedy that happened there a hundred years previous.

Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate…

Inspired by Brooklyn | Music and a Movie

Thu, Apr 18 6:00pm
Center for Brooklyn History

BPL Presents brooklyn history Brooklyn Is

Singer-songwriter Tsebiyah Mishael Derry performs, followed by a screening of the 1980 film Brighton Beach, introduced by filmmaker Susan Wittenberg. 

 

About "Inspired by Brooklyn"

The Brooklyn vibe is in the room at this cabaret-style series presented in connection with CBH’s…

Choice Words: Writers on Abortion

Thu, Apr 18 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

Featuring Annie Finch with contributors Mahogany Browne, Desiree Cooper, Camonghne Felix, Kristen Ghodsee, Katha Pollitt, and Manisha Sharma:

The debate about the morality, legality, and politics of abortion has reached a tragic impasse in the United States. What fresh perspectives, complex…

Celebrating Brooklyn Poets, Past and Present

Wed, Apr 24 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

BPL Presents brooklyn collection Center for Brooklyn History

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

Thu, Apr 25 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

anti-racism author talks BPL Presents

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”

Mon, Apr 29 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

anti-racism author talks BPL Presents

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 Discusses A Man of Two Faces

Thu, May 2 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents

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…

Author Talk: Renée Watson on skin & bones, with Roxane Gay

Thu, May 9 6:00pm
Brooklyn Heights Library, Multipurpose Room

author talks BPL Presents

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

Wed, May 15 6:30pm
Center for Brooklyn History

anti-racism author talks BPL Presents

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

Wed, May 15 7:00pm
Central Library, Dweck Center

author talks BPL Presents lectures and discussions

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…

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