Many CBH Talks were recorded. To view, visit the Center for Brooklyn History Talks YouTube channel at bklynlib.org/CBH-Talks.
Past Events
Talks in the Othmer | What’s Prison For?
Nearly two million Americans are held in our country’s prisons and jails, a number widely acknowledged as a source of national shame. Steeped in violence and dysfunction, the question “Where does prison reform begin?” remains daunting. Can America’s broken system be remade to value humanity over…
CBH Talk: The Battle for the Right to Read What You Want
Last month Summer Boismier, a high school English teacher in Norman, Oklahoma, lost her job when she provided students with the QR Code to Brooklyn Public Library’s “Books Unbanned” initiative, which gives out-of-state teens access to the Library's eBook collection, including books that might be…
Talks in the Othmer: Screens, Teens & Rattled Parents
Harvard University researchers Emily Weinstein and Carrie James have spent their careers studying teens’ use of technology. In their book, Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults are Missing), they explore the complex digital universe that teens inhabit and the often misguided…
Talks in the Othmer: Corey Robin on Making Sense of Clarence Thomas’s America
Corey Robin, one of the foremost analysts of the right, brings fresh and often prescient perspectives to our understanding of American conservatism. His ground-breaking books, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, The Reactionary Mind and Fear, explain the history that brings us to these unprecedented…
CBH Talk - The Big Anniversary: Fort Greene’s Soul Summit Music Festival Turns 20
In June and July the Center for Brooklyn History opens its doors for limited, live public programs! Before renovations to our ground floor begin, join us in the building for one or more of these live programs and whet your appetite for CBH’s grand reopening later this year.Join the…
CBH Talk - A Rainbow Spin Through NYC: The LGBTQ Guide to a New York You Didn’t Know
In May and June the Center for Brooklyn History opens its doors for limited, live public programs! Before renovations to our ground floor begin, join us in the building for one or more of these live programs and whet your appetite for CBH’s grand reopening later this year.From Harlem to…
CBH Talk: One Man’s Story of Gay Rights and Asylum
In May and June the Center for Brooklyn History opens its doors for limited, live public programs! Before renovations to our ground floor begin, join us in the building for one or more of these live programs and whet your appetite for CBH’s grand reopening later this year.On the eve of Edafe…
Enacting Central Brooklyn: A Theatrical Sharing of Community and History
In May and June the Center for Brooklyn History opens its doors for limited, live programs! Before renovations to our ground floor begin, join us in the building for this special original production. The grand reopening of the building will take place later this year!Enacting…
CBH Talk - Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands
In May and June the Center for Brooklyn History opens its doors for limited, live public programs! Before renovations to our ground floor begin, join us in the building for one or more of these live programs and whet your appetite for CBH’s grand reopening later this year.In her new book, Bad…
Opening the Archives: Finding LGBTQ+ History in the CBH Collections
When author Hugh Ryan researched his 2019 book When Brooklyn Was Queer, he delved deep into the archives at the Center for Brooklyn History. Queer history is rarely neatly labeled in finding aids or research guides. And so Hugh brought a queer lens to an array of seemingly unrelated…
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