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
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Upcoming
Nikhil Goyal discusses Live to See the Day with Michelle Goldberg
Nikhil Goyal, a sociologist and recent senior policy adviser for Senator Bernie Sanders, offers an examination of the school dropout crisis and failings of the social safety net.“An incisive,...
Plaza Performance: DJ Max Glazer
Max Glazer has represented New York City touring the world DJing parties for superstars like Naomi Campbell, Puff Daddy, Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, Branford Marsalis, and Jay Z, to name just a...
CBH Talk | Remembering Barbara Ehrenreich
In-person attendance for this program is at capacity! Please join the livestream on the Center for Brooklyn History Public Programs YouTube Channel. To watch the broadcast live, click...
University Open Air: Lectura 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...
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Memoirs by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Safiya Sinclair, and Phillip Lopate
Co-Presented by the Brooklyn Book Festival and BPL Presents, three authors discuss their memoirs.Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, Ingrid Rojas Contreras...
CBH Talk | A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
In Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, the struggle over Israel/Palestine is given a profoundly human face through the heart-wrenching story of a tragic accident that...
CBH Talk | Prison Imperialism: Indigenous and Black Histories of Subjugation and Global Freedom Dreams
In his explosive new book, historian Benjamin Weber reveals how the story of American prisons is inextricably linked to the expansion of American power around the globe. Join him in conversation...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
CBH Talk | College Behind Bars
There are more than two million people living behind bars in the United States—in state and federal prisons, local jails, and immigration detention facilities. Many live in dire conditions despite...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Classical Interludes: Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner and Eleni Katz
In this program, featuring a double-bill of 2022 CAG Winners Eleni Katz (bassoon) and Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner (piano), the artists traverse the world with us in an international program featuring...
CBH Talk | Michael Waldman and Jesse Wegman on the Supreme Court
What happens when the highest court in the land no longer represents the country at large? Among the experts sounding the alarm over the Supreme Court’s hard swerve to the right is Michael Waldman...
Pandora’s BoxX Project: Celebrating Womxn Artists & Visionaries
Pandora’s BoxX Project is a photographic portrait series that documents and celebrates the impact of womxn creators and art workers (including trans, non-binary, gender queer, and female) who...
Teju Cole Discusses Tremor with Emily Raboteau
Co-presented with Greenlight Bookstore, BPL Presents features a powerful, intimate novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world—from the award-winning...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
CBH Talk | Jocelyn Simonson and James Forman Jr. Discuss “Radical Acts of Justice”
Across the country, ordinary people are challenging the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining “law and order” are carrying out the will...
Tanisha C. Ford on Our Secret Society, with Kaitlyn Greenidge
Join Tanisha C. Ford at Brooklyn Heights Library as she discusses her new book Our Secret Society with Kaitlyn Greenidge. Books will be available for purchase from The Center...
BPL Book Prize Shortlist Panel Event
Join Brooklyn Public Library & the Brooklyn Eagles to celebrate the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Shortlist Finalists.This BPL Book Prize event will feature two panels featuring...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Classical Interludes: Sofya Melikian
Pianist Sofya Melikyan is praised for being a “a highly sensitive performer, who always subordinates technical aspects to the rhetoric” (Remy Franck, Pizzicato) and “a...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Classical Interludes: Ensemble Pi presents Banned Books
Banned Books is an evening-length performance of six premieres commissioned by Ensemble Pi in response to recent U.S. bills, which ban books or curtail the discussion of critical race theory,...
CBH Talk | Joe Sexton and Errol Louis discuss "The Lost Sons of Omaha"
Veteran journalist Joe Sexton’s new book, The Lost Sons of Omaha: Two Young Men in an American Tragedy, unpacks two linked and tragic deaths stemming from the 2020 George Floyd protests. It tells...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Nannies' Fairy Tales Writing Workshops
Brooklyn Public Library invites nannies to participate in a dynamic eight-week FREE writing workshop where you can learn about some traditional forms of storytelling, from origin myths to fairy...
Classical Interludes: Carnegie Hall Citywide: Sullivan Fortner Trio
Sullivan Fortner Trio
- Sullivan Fortner, Piano
- Tyrone Allen, Bass
- Kayvon Gordon, Drums
Hear one of today’s most exciting jazz pianists lead his...
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Past Events
Theater of War: Hercules in Brooklyn, November 2016
Oliver Stone and Ben Wizner, September 2016
Edwidge Danticat and Jacqueline Woodson, April 2016
Alash, January 2016
Slavoj Žižek and Hari Kunzru, November 2016
The Night of the Cookers, February 2016
Viet Thanh Nguyen and Vu Tran, April 2016
Night of Philosophy. January 2017
Salman Rushdie with Joel Whitney, October 2015
John Irving, November 2015
SYBARITE5, February 2016
Yaa Gyasi, June 2016
Brooklyn Public Library gratefully acknowledges the many donors who have provided generous support for BPL Presents programs, including: Cheryl and George Haywood Endowment for Cultural Diversity, Dr. Beverly S. Jacobs, The Kahn Endowment for Humanities Programs, The Miriam Katowitz and Arthur Radin Fund, Mapleton Endowment, Humanities New York, New York State Council on the Arts, Sandra and Peter Schubert Endowment Fund, The Morris & Alma Schapiro Fund and the Estate of Pearl S. Reuillard in memory of her parents Yetta and Louis Schwartz.
Programs are also supported by Brooklyn Public Library’s Fund for the Humanities which was established through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Hearst Foundation, Inc., Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Starr Foundation, the Leon and Muriel Gilbert Charitable Trust, Henry and Lucy Moses Fund, Inc. and a gift in memory of Samuel and Pauline Wine.
