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
CBH Talk | What to Save? Landmarks for a New New York
Sixty years ago New York City passed the NYC Landmarks Law, designed to protect the city’s historic and architectural heritage. Today the Landmarks Preservation Commission ensures the future of more than 38,000 buildings in five boroughs, along with scenic landmarks like Prospect Park…
CBH Talk | Martha Jones and Nikole Hannah-Jones Discuss “The Trouble of Color”
Prize-winning historian Martha Jones has authored books about slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, women’s suffrage, Jim Crow, and the modern Civil Rights Movement. But her newest work, The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, is altogether different. A deeply personal…
Omar El Akkad Discusses One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This with Hala Alyan
From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values, in conversation with Hala Alyan
On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks into the bombing of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet…
Bianca Bosker Discusses Get the Picture: Inside the New York Art World
Join us for an exciting panel exploring the New York art world with Bianca Bosker, author of Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See. Bosker will be joined by acclaimed local artists Julie Curtiss and Liz Ainslie, who…
CBH Talk | Elaine Weiss and Rashawn Davis Discuss “Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil RIghts Movement”
As we approach the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, join us for a look at an under-recognized program that laid the foundation for the voting activism of the mid-1960s. In the summer of 1954, just weeks after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Ed decision, four courageous…
Screening and Discussion of “The Cost of Inheritance”
Emmy nominee and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Yoruba Richen shares and discusses her one-hour documentary, “The Cost of Inheritance,” which follows the long journey of individuals and communities seeking to make reparations a reality on the personal, local, and national levels.…
CBH Talk | Noliwe Rooks and Sonya Douglass Discuss “Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children”
Noliwe Rooks is one of the most admired scholars in education today. In her new book, Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children,” she traces four generations of her own family’s educational journey to challenge the idea that integration was a boon for Black children.…
Jinwoo Chong on I Leave It Up To You, In Conversation With Grant Ginder
Join us at Brooklyn Heights Library to hear Jinwoo Chong discuss his new novel I Leave It Up to You with Grant Ginder.
From the award-winning author of Flux comes a dazzling novel about love, family, and the art of sushi that asks: What if you could return to the point of a fateful…
Poetry Café of the National Black Writers Conference
As part of Brooklyn Public Library's longtime partnership with National Black Writers Conference, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College co-presents an annual poetry café featuring four amazing poets: Angela Du, Kaiyah Ellison, Bonafide Rojas, and Zora Satchel.
Participants…
CBH Talk | Elie Mystal and Christina Greer Discuss “Bad Law”
In Bad Law, Elie Mystal, author of the New York Times bestseller Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, brings his legal acumen and signature snark to take down ten of what he considers the most awful laws on the books today. Join us as he explains how laws…
Classical Interludes: Orchestra of St. Luke's: The Music of Chen Yi
Discover the remarkable music of Chen Yi, a celebrated Chinese-American composer whose work connects cultures and tells stories that resonate around the world. This special program brings Chen Yi’s music to life offering an experience that blends tradition, inspiration, and creativity.
…
CBH Talk | Discussing “Waterworks,” Stanley Greenberg’s Photographs of New York’s Hidden Water System
This program is offered in partnership with Open House New York.
We take our water for granted; turn on the tap and it’s there. Yet New York City’s faucets are endpoints in a journey through a vast, sophisticated, and visually humbling infrastructure of aqueducts,…
Kevin Young Discusses a Century of Poetry in The New Yorker with Deborah Garrison
BPL Presents welcomes Kevin Young, poetry editor for The New Yorker, to discuss a new anthology celebrating one hundred years of "influential, entertaining, and taste-making verse" published in the magazine. Young will be in conversation with Deborah Garrison.
Some of the stellar names…
Classical Interludes: ArcoStrum
Strauss Shi – violin, erhu, dizi
TY Zhang – classical guitar, electric guitar
Embark on a truly groundbreaking musical journey with The ArcoStrum Experience…
CBH Talk | Russell Shorto and Andrea Mosterman Discuss “Taking Manhattan”
Join us for an evening with master storyteller and historian Russell Shorto as he discusses his latest book, Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events that Created New York and Shaped America. Building on his acclaimed The Island at the Center of the World, Shorto delves into the…
ReelAbilities Film Festival: The Trouble with Mr. Doodle
Dir. Jaimie D'Cruz, Ed Perkins
Documentary - English -2024 ‧ UK‧ 1h 30m
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Agnes Callard Discusses Open Socrates with Elizabeth Bruenig
BPL Presents partners with the Authors Guild Foundation to co-present Agnes Callard, an iconoclastic philosopher who revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer—and, in the first place, ask—life’s most important questions. Callard will be in conversation with Elizabeth Bruenig.
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Pankaj Mishra Discusses The World After Gaza with Nermeen Shaikh
From one of our foremost public intellectuals, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza that reframes our understanding of the ongoing conflict, its historical roots, and the fractured global response. In this BPL Presents conversation, Pankaj Mishra discusses The World After Gaza with…
Madhu Kaza on Lines of Flight with Youmna Chlala, Jacqui Cornetta, Yasmine Seale & Mónica de la Torre
BPL Presents welcomes Madhu H. Kaza who presents her latest work, Lines of Flight, with Youmna Chlala, Jacqui Cornetta, Yasmine Seale, and Mónica de la Torre.
Join us for an evening of collaborative performance and experiments in error based on Lines of Flight, Madhu H. Kaza's chapbook on…
Greg Grandin Discusses America, América with Francisco Goldman
BPL Presents welcomes the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, with the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both…
The story of how the United States’ identity was formed is…
Claire Hoffman Discusses Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life & Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson
BPL Presents welcomes Claire Hoffman to discuss Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life & Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, the story of one-of-a-kind American life.
On a spring day in 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson wandered into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. The nation’s…
Katie Kitamura Discusses Audition with Meghan O'Rourke
Join BPL Presents as Katie Kitamura takes the Dweck stage to discuss Audition, an exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals…
Bridgett M. Davis Discusses Love, Rita with Deesha Philyaw
BPL Presents welcomes Bridgett M. Davis, who discusses a searing tribute of sisterhood and family, profound love and loss from the acclaimed author of The World According to Fannie Davis.
In Love, Rita Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her beloved older sister Rita, who knew Bridgett…
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Emiliano Messiez Trio
Emiliano Messiez is a Latin Grammy-nominated pianist and composer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, now based in New York City. One of the most in-demand tango pianists in the U.S., he has performed at renowned venues such as Lincoln…
Joan C. Williams Discusses Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class & How to Win Them Back
BPL Presents features Joan C. Williams on her new book, Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back.
Is there a single change that could simultaneously protect democracy, spur progress on climate change, enact sane gun policies, and improve our response to the…
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