All BPL Presents programs at the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Cultural Center at Central Library are free of charge (unless otherwise noted) and reservations are required for most adult programs. Patrons with reservations will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Unclaimed reservations will be released fifteen minutes before the start of an event; we recommend arriving early. Patrons without reservations will be seated as capacity allows.
Reservations can be made 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week on our website by visiting the program’s calendar entry at bklynlibrary.org/bplpresents or by phone at 718.230.2200 (please see our phone reservation policy for hours and additional details). Reservations can be made up to approximately one hour before the scheduled program start time. The maximum number of seats that can be reserved per event is 3.
The Dweck Center is an accessible venue. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at the event, please contact BPLPresents@bklynlibrary.org.
Reservations for adult programs can be made with a BPL representative Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. For weekend events, reservations must be made by 4 pm on the Friday before the event takes place. Any reservations received after 4pm will not be processed. If leaving a message, please slowly and clearly state your first and last name, your phone number, the name and date of the program you would like to attend, and the number of seats you are requesting (maximum of 3).
CBH Talk | The Honorable Ed Towns in Conversation with Deputy Borough President Kim Council
For five decades former Congressman Ed Towns stood at the center of Brooklyn change as the first African American Deputy Borough president (1976 - 1982) and U.S. Representative for New York’s 10th congressional district (1983 - 2013). Representing historically Black neighborhoods…
Just Conversations | Voices from New York State’s Reparations Commission
About Just ConversationsJust Conversations is a series co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and Brooklyn Org that brings into dialogue issues facing our borough, city, and society and gives voice to the change makers who move us towards a more equitable future.This program is the second…
Jessica Valenti on Abortion with Alexis McGill Johnson
BPL Presents brings a stirring and succinct examination of post-Roe America by Jessica Valenti, “one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation” (Washington Post). In Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies & the Truths We Use to Win, Valenti takes on what’s become one of the…
Classical Interludes: Sonic Spectrum III
Hear a collection of music for winds, percussion, and piano, all written by some of the most exciting composers of today. The concert includes a new work by American composer Elise Arancio, commissioned by CMS.
Sonic Spectrum III
Liza Lim: Ming Qi (Bright Vessel)…
Night in the Library
On Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 7 pm, Night in the Library returns with The Sky Above Brooklyn –The Philosophy of the Sublime.
Don't be alone with your thoughts.
Night in the Library is an after-hours invitation to discussions, performances and screenings that celebrate the free flow…
CBH Talk | Green Gentrification and the Future of the BQE
This program is offered in partnership with the Institute for Public Architecture and the Brooklyn Heights Association.
When Robert Moses built the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE), he demolished historic neighborhoods, disrupted thriving communities, and displaced…
Jamieson Webster Discusses On Breathing with Jia Tolentino
Join BPL Presents and Jamieson Webster, who discusses On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe, a gorgeous, expansive piece of narrative non-fiction about care, dependence, and what it means to breathe in an age of environmental catastrophe.
A few moments after birth we begin to use our…
CBH Talk | Collecting + Care: Exploring the BLK MKT Vintage Vault
The awe. The wonder. The quest. The adventure.~ Jannah and Kiyanna Handy, BLK MKT Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and Curiosities That Tell Black Stories
Jannah and Kiyanna Handy, owners of BLK MKT Vintage and authors of BLK MKT Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and…
Ariel Dorfman Discusses Allegro
This thrilling historical mystery starring Mozart tells of friendship and betrayal, and how music allows us to defy death—from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden and The Suicide Museum.
In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking…
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…
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.…
Poets Café
As part of the National Black Writers Conference, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College presents a poetry café featuring four amazing poets: Angela Du, Kaiyah Ellison, Bonafide Rojas, and Zora Satchel.
ParticipantsAngela Du is a young poet, actress, and model. Angela grew…
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,…
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.
…
Pankaj Mishra Discusses The World After Gaza
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.
The postwar global order was in many ways shaped in response to the Holocaust. That…
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…
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…
Arts & Culture Newsletter
Be the first to know about our finest literary and cultural programming. Sign up today!
Get Social with BPL Presents
