free things to do in New York City
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Free Events, Free Things to Do in New York City! Read More
New York attracts world's best minds to its shores: they come here to interact with each other at conferences and seminars, and while they are here they are often invited to give a talk, a lecture, to be a part of a public discussion. We at Club Free Time give you an opportunity to be a part of it: to watch how those best minds in the world work! Don't miss the opportunities that only New York City (NYC) provides!
Join the Club!
The quality and quantity of
free events,
free things to do
that happen in New York City
every day of the year
is truly amazing.
So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
today!
The quality and quantity of
free events,
free things to do
that happen in New York City
every day of the year
is truly amazing.
So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
today!
178 free talks, lectures, discussions in New York City (NYC) Mon, 02/02/2026 - and on...
In New York City, you can talk with and listen to the best minds in the world without spending a dime! Just take a look at free talks, lectures, discussion, seminars, conferences listed on this page below!
Lecture | A Turning Point in America’s Favorite Pastime: Baseball (Online!)
A talk exploring the early history of professional baseball and the founding of its oldest league, tracing how the sport helped shape American culture. The discussion examines intense competition, labor struggles, and early challenges to racial segregation, including the contributions of some of the first Black professional players. Presented by a noted baseball historian, the program offers insight into how baseball’s formative years reflected broader social and political forces.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Activists & Experts Discuss Immigration Detention & Mass Incarceration
This event will bring together faculty, students, and advocates in both immigration detention and justice-impacted communities, from Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Texas. They will share first-hand stories of crackdowns on immigrant communities in each of their communities, and their connection to experiences of incarceration. They will also reflect on the narratives that have divided the movements against immigration detention and mass incarceration, and envision what stories, scholarship, and pedagogies can help bring them together The systems of immigration detention and mass incarceration are intertwined: immigrants and citizens accused of crimes are often detained in the same buildings, controlled by the same personnel, managed by the same corporations. Expansions of prisons have fueled the expansion of immigration detention, and vice versa. Yet they are often understood — and contested — separately.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Literary Scholar Discusses Her New Book, Forgotten Friendships: Yugoslavia and the Anticolonial Francophone World
In her book Forgotten Friendships: Yugoslavia and the Anticolonial Francophone World, Serbian literary scholar Alexandra Perišić examines transnational friendships and alliances between intellectuals from Yugoslavia and the Francophone African and Caribbean world during the mid-twentieth century. Forgotten Friendships emphasizes the ways in which writers, intellectuals, and activists envisioned alternative futures rooted in collaboration across peripheries. Personal bonds of friendship were not mere footnotes to the anti-colonial struggle, but vital political tools for rethinking global solidarity.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Chef Shares Her New Cookbook, Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens
Chef and uptown restaurateur Beejhy Barhany sits down to discuss her new cookbook Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond with food writer and editor Gabriella Gershenson.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Exploring Textiles, Photography, and Narrative (Online!)
Artists Stacy Bogdonoff and Teri Figliuzzi discuss their creative practices, which focus on textiles, fibers, alternative photographic methods, and the physicality of making. Bogdonoff works in both two- and three-dimensional forms, often incorporating narrative into her work, while Figliuzzi blends botanical imagery with handcrafted techniques such as cyanotypes, weaving, and leafing. Their conversation highlights the intersections of material, technique, and personal reflection in contemporary art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Musican Discusses His Music Education Initiatives in Peru
Hear Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez discuss his organization, Sinfonía por el Perú, which has been providing music education to children and young people for over a decade. 15 years ago, Flórez founded Sinfonía por el Perú, which has transformed the lives of more than 35,000 children and young people growing up in contexts of high risk and vulnerability. Through free music education, they gain access to a safe space that promotes emotional well-being, the development of personal and social skills, and the construction of positive and sustainable life projects. Above all, they learn to believe in themselves and to dream of a better future.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 2
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Human and Nonhuman Histories in European Painting
Museum experts offer an in-depth look at selected works from a recent rotation of European paintings focused on ecological relationships. Through close looking and behind-the-scenes insights, the talk explores how artists have depicted intertwined human and nonhuman histories, inviting new ways of understanding landscape, environment, and artmaking. Note: Space is limited; first-come, first-served.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Political Science Scholar Shares Her New Book, Maidan: Ukarine's Democratic Revolution (In Person AND Online!)
Enjoy a book talk by Sophia Wilson about her new book, Maidan: Ukraine's Democratic Revolution. Dr. Sophia Wilson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and the President of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies. Maidan is a carefully researched account of the underbelly of the Ukrainian revolutionary process in the winter of 2013-14. The book investigates how participants self-organized to create the resistance, why the peaceful movement eventually turned to violence, and how the revolutionary process changed those who came to change the country. The Ukrainian state used violence and violations of due process to suppress the resistance, thereby declaring new boundaries in rights relations. Wilson’s book shows how the people pushed back in multiple arenas – the protest square, courtrooms, hospitals, churches, and media – to successfully challenge the constitutionality of the state’s actions.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Scholar Discusses Italian Cinema & Environmentalism
Laura Di Bianco discusses her book project, Crumbling Beauty: An Environmental History of Italian Cinema. Engaging with classic, forgotten, and emergent Italian films, from the silent era to the present, this book will retrieve forgotten memories of traumatic events, reactivate the history of environmentalism, and renew vision for the struggle against the climate crisis. Di Bianco is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary Italian studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of film studies, women's and gender studies, and environmental humanities. She is the author of Wandering Women: Urban Ecologies of Italian Feminist Filmmaking and essays that have appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals and edited volumes, among which are Waste and Discard Studies in the Mediterranean and Ecologia e lavoro. Registration does not guarantee a seat; registrants are seated first-come, first-served.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Talk | Black Legacies: Share Heirlooms & Engage in Community Storytelling
Experience a dynamic dialogue with founders of BLK MKT Vintage Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewar, and Renata Cherlise, founder of BlackArchives.co, moderated by Kei Williams from Black Gotham Experience. Together they will explore the intersections of memory, archiving, material culture, and community storytelling. The conversation will delve into how Black history is preserved, shared, and activated through everyday objects, and how contemporary archives and platforms shape the narratives we pass forward. 5 PM-6:30 PM Begin the evening in the lobby with an interactive experience, Community Heirlooms & Histories Showcase. Guests are invited to take part in an intimate, interactive "roadshow" experience centered on personal Black history and cultural memory. Community members interested in showcasing their heirlooms, please complete this form. Participants are encouraged to bring their own heirlooms such as photographs, textiles, books, vinyl, artworks, and everyday ephemera,to be informally examined and celebrated. This gathering honors the power of preservation and the richness of material culture within the African Diaspora. 6:30 PM-8 PM Conversation with BLK MKT Vintage & BlackArchives.co
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Understanding AI & Urban Issues
Drawing on research from the recently launched Urban Institute at NYU Tandon, Professor Maurizio Porfiri demonstrates how we can leverage data science and AI to address these complex urban interdependencies—from climate change and grid stability to the needs of aging populations and economic volatility. This talk reveals how urban science is being used to safeguard grid stability and shape the resilient cities of tomorrow. By 2050, 70% of the world will live in cities, and those cities will be powered by the data centers we build today. Far from being isolated in the periphery, 97.5% of US data centers are hidden in plain sight within urban centers, driven primarily by electricity-grid capacity.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss Criminalization of Immigrant & Black Communities
Teams of faculty and advocates from around the country will exchange experiences with scholars and East Harlem leaders on community-led strategies for addressing criminalization of both immigrant and Black communities, and how educators, students, and scholars in New York City and everywhere can support new narratives and pedagogies to address our current moment of carceral excess. This gathering hopes to continue the campus-community conversations begun in the April 2025 Building Bridges event. Hear from:
Maria Guerrero, President, Padres Pioneros and Rosa Rivera-Furumoto, Cal State Northridge on fights against immigration detention in LA
Anisah Sabur-Mumin, Lead organizer, New York Coalition of Women Prisoners on recent victories in New York City
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Talk | The State of U.S.–Mexico Relations: Trade, Security, and the Road Ahead
This panel explores the changing relationship between the United States and Mexico amid heightened political and economic tensions. Although trade between the two nations stays robust, disagreements over immigration and the future of the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement continue to strain diplomatic relations.
Looking ahead to 2026, speakers will discuss what’s next for one of the world’s most significant bilateral partnerships, focusing on regional security, economic collaboration, and cross-border policy issues. A prominent journalist will moderate the discussion, featuring experts in foreign policy and global economics.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Curator & Researcher Shares Her New Book, Second Skin (+ Signing)
Attend a conversation with Anastasiia Fedorova to celebrate her new book, Second Skin, a personal and cultural meditation on the radical, vibrant world of sexual fetishists and what it means to come to terms with one's own sexuality. The discussion will be followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss the Future of Holocaust Remembrance
Attend a conversation commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with Stefano Albertini, NYU, Alessandro Cassin, Centro Primo Levi, Natalia Indrimi, Centro Primo Levi, and Anthony Tamburri, Dean of the Calandra Institute at CUNY. The Italian, French, and German governments established the commemoration of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, which became known in Italy as Giorno della Memoria. Since then, the world has changed profoundly, and the arduous task of bringing the Nazi-Fascist extermination to the surface of public memory has led to the development of a vast research field, educational projects, and public ceremonies. Based on the experience of the past two decades, institutions are coming together to talk about how we imagine the history of the Nazi and Fascist extermination being recounted to future generations, what we have learned from this work, and how it transformed our perception and perspectives. In the face of ever more perfected assaults on humanity, and observing the growing display of what Primo Levi described as "pitiful relics" in fancy "museums" and "freshly painted barracks," the organizers have decided to convene and begin to work on a film that will address these experience and seek a path beyond the production of literal clones of the past and a culture that glorifies them.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Slide Lecture | Schoalr Discusses Visual Arts & "The Academy"
This event will be a slide lecture on images and narratives of academia from the myth of Akademos, to Plato's Academy, the Florentine Academy of Drawing, the British Royal Academy, and Pierre Bourdieu's Homo Academicus. Since there is no doubt that the academy is in a state of siege at the present time, it seems like a good moment to reflect on the persons, places, and things we call "academies" and their long struggle with the forces that both threaten and define their existence. Professor W. J. T. Mitchell will focus on the role of the visual arts in the academy (including his own), and conclude with contemporary attempts to re-imagine the academy as itself a work of art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Forum | Witnessing Humanity Through Art and Justice
This panel discussion reflects on the life and legacy of artist John Wilson, whose work powerfully addressed racial, social, and economic justice for more than six decades. Drawing from a museum exhibition, the conversation considers Wilson’s vision, global influence, and enduring relevance in times of social and political upheaval.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Archeology Expert Shares New Research on Rome's Parthenon of Marcus Agrippa
Professor C. Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania and former President of the Archaeological Institute of America discusses one of antiquity’s foremost buildings in Rome, dating back two thousand years. New research on the Pantheon of Marcus Agrippa — dedicated in 25 BCE, destroyed by fire, only to be subsequently rebuilt — reveals that the building’s original pediment featured three scenes from the life of Romulus, which was intended to highlight the central Campus Martius as the site of Romulus’ apotheosis. The decoration also established a link between Romulus and Agrippa’s father-in-law the Emperor Augustus, whose own Mausoleum was axially aligned with the Pantheon.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Historian Celebrates His New Book on MLK, King of the North (In Person AND Online!)
Historian and professor Jeanne Theoharis discusses her latest book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South, with organizer and educator Mariame Kaba. The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, award-winning and New York Times bestselling historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King’s time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—outside Dixie—was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Spoken Word Performances Honoring MLK Jr.
Attend the MLK Spoken Word Contest (formerly, the MLK Oratorical Contest), an annual event to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through oral performances. All performances will center around the prompt, “Infinite Dreams of Tomorrow,” and focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of choosing hope and courage in times of imposed scarcity and division. The keynote will be given by Queens-born artist and educator Ebony Sojourner, whose arts educational organization, Disrupt Media, is on a mission to provide young people of color the opportunity and resources necessary to engage in storytelling as a practice of healing. Light refreshments will be served.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Yi-Ling Liu Launches Her New Book, The Wall Dancers
The Wall Dancers author Yi-Ling Liu will be in conversation with senior writer at WIRED, Zeyi Yang. Synopsis: An indelible, deeply reported human narrative of contemporary China in which the country's carefully regulated internet offers a lens into the broader national tension between freedom and control. Yi-Ling Liu is a writer and editor covering Chinese society and technology. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, WIRED, and The New Yorker.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 3
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Designer & Entrepreneur Stuart Weitzman Discusses His Career & Craft
Legendary shoe designer and entrepreneur Stuart Weitzman leads an exclusive and inspiring event where he will present A Designer’s Entrepreneurial Journey: On the Road Less Traveled. This book offers an inside look at his remarkable career, the creation of iconic styles worn by Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and many others, and the invaluable life lessons he’s learned along the way. This is a rare opportunity to hear firsthand from one of the most influential designers of our time—an event not to be missed.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
10:00 am
Free
10:00 am
Free
Gallery Talk | Learn How a Historic Mansion Turned into a Museum
Join a museum educator for a brief gallery talk tracing how a Gilded Age mansion was transformed into a world-class art museum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Award-Winning Writer Shares His New Bob Dylan Book: After the Flood
Enjoy a reading and conversation with author and Professor of Writing at The New School, Robert Polito, as he sits down with John Reed to talk about Polito's new work, After the Flood. Synopsis: Blending biography and archival history, After the Flood asks of Bob Dylan, "If your dreams are fulfilled at twenty, what do you do with the rest of your life?" A familiar narrative goes: Bob Dylan, the voice of sixties counterculture, disappeared in the 1970s, then released arguably the worst music of his career in the 1980s--only to be resurrected in 2016, when he was controversially awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dylan's concerts once began with an announcer intoning a deadpan version of just such a narrative. That is not this story. Here, instead, is Dylan's second thirty years. Across an abecedarium of chapters surveying his albums, performances, films, and books since 1991--since that rainy February night in New York City when Dylan, then forty-nine, accepted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, signaling in effect that his extraordinary vocation as a vital and indispensable creative force had ended, was over--After the Flood reveals Dylan's creative output during the last three decades as his most ambitious and accomplished yet.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Explore the Future of Conversion Therapy Bans in the U.S.
This event will bring together medical professionals and policy experts to discuss the future of conversion therapy bans in the United States. Over the last several years, 23 states, including New York and New Jersey, have barred licensed mental health professionals from providing therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation and gender identity. These conversion therapy bans often had bipartisan support when they passed. According to the New York Times, 8 statewide bans were “signed by Republican governors, and every bill passed with Republican support.” However, support for conversion therapy bans has declined recently as criticisms of policies and programs aimed at supporting queer and trans people have surged amongst the American public. In October, the Supreme Court heard in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. A majority of the justices expressed skepticism over Colorado’s law during oral argument.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Filmmaker Benoît Cohen Shares His New Memoir, Wonderful
Enjoy a conversation with fillmaker Benoît Cohen to celebrate his new book, Wonderful, a stirring and thoughtful exploration of life, loss, and grief within a family. The conversation will be followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Quiet Reading Meet Up
Bring a book or check one out of the library to read to yourself for one hour. After that, spend an hour socializing with those around you!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Award Winning German Author & Philosophy Scholar Discuss the Role of Literature in Fractured Society
Experience a special evening featuring award‑winning German author and public intellectual Navid Kermani in conversation with Omri Boehm, Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at The New School. These two prominent thinkers will discuss how current global conflict and political division are reshaping public life. In recent years, Kermani has traveled through regions marked by upheaval to document how ordinary people endure, resist, and make meaning. Drawing on these journeys, he will read from his recent writings and reflect on the role of literature in times of crisis. Kermani and Boehm will explore what it means to write, think, and speak publicly in an era defined by polarization, war, displacement, and deepening political fragmentation. Their conversation will touch on current developments in the Middle East and consider how these events reverberate in Germany, the United States, and beyond. Together, they will examine how the idea of "the West" is evolving, and whether literature, poetry, and religious thought can still offer common ground or moral orientation in fractured societies.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | James Baldwin: Voice of American Literature and Activism
A film series dedicated to the life and legacy of novelist and activist James Baldwin, featuring films from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. Selected by artist Glenn Ligon, the screenings explore Baldwin’s political thought, cultural criticism, and personal life, from public debates and documentary footage to more intimate portraits. The series opens with a conversation between Glenn Ligon and writer Nicholas Boggs on Baldwin’s lasting influence.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Air Quality and Environmental Inequality in the NYC Subway System
This talk examines air quality in New York City’s subway system and how exposure to pollution varies across communities. Drawing on system-wide air quality measurements and commuter data, the program explores how factors such as train friction, ventilation, race, income, and neighborhood shape who is most affected by poor underground air conditions. For ages 21+ only.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
7:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish for New...
7:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish for New...
Book Discussion | Historian Shares Her New Nonfiction Book, Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary (In Person AND Online!)
Historian Nina Sankovitch will speak about her new book, Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary, with author Jennifer Finney Boyla. In 1776 a 23-year-old woman named Jemima Wilkinson suffered a severe illness, declared her past self dead, and then rebranded as the Public Universal Friend, a genderless messenger of God. In a few short years the Friend preached across the Northeast and attracted a devoted band of followers known as the Society of Universal Friends. Sankovitch's book recounts the Friend’s radical and unprecedented ministry. It traces the life of Jemima Wilkinson in colonial Rhode Island through to the Friend’s efforts to establish a community based on principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as the challenges and scandals that threatened it.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Panel Talk on Color in Architecture (Aesthetics, Mood, & Environment"
Attend a timely panel discussion, ‘The Importance of Color In Architecture’, moderated by Elley Cheng, former President of Pantone. The distinguished panel — Tannese Williams (Pantone Fashion + Home Interiors), Hannah Yeo (Benjamin Moore & Co.), and Nélida Quintero, PhD, MArch, MFA (Environmental Psychologist / Architect) — will explore how color shapes not just aesthetics, but mood, memory, well-being, and our sense of place. Discover why certain hues recur over decades — and what the “color of now” reveals about our evolving social and cultural environment.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 4
7:30 pm
Free
7:30 pm
Free
Symposium | New Perspectives on Early Cycladic Art
This symposium brings together an international group of scholars to examine the Leonard N. Stern Collection of Cycladic Art, presented through a landmark cultural partnership with Greece. Through a series of short talks and discussions, participants explore archaeology, artistic exchange, modern reception, and new approaches to understanding Early Bronze Age Cycladic works.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
10:30 am
Free
10:30 am
Free
Gallery Talk | Love, Desire, and Gender in Medieval Art
Discover how love, sex, and gender were represented in medieval art through a focused gallery talk. Experts guide small groups through select objects, sharing new insights, untold stories, and close-up perspectives on the works' craftsmanship, symbolism, and social context. Attendees can also ask questions and engage directly with the discussion.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Creative Panel Explores Power & Responsibility in Shaping Narratives
Bringing together conversation, recognition, and artistry, this event features a panel exploring how individuals and communities move beyond constraints toward transformative change and possibility. The conversation features Michael Ealy, actor and producer, and Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko. Drawing on lived experience and professional work across cultural production and global storytelling, the panelists will reflect on the power and responsibility of shaping narratives—and how those narratives can expand possibility and fuel hope. Together, they will explore how creativity, courage, and moral imagination can open pathways toward more inclusive futures.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Race, Freedom, and Daily Life in Early New York (Online!)
A historical talk exploring the lives of free, "half-free," and enslaved Black people in 17th-century New York. The program examines how early Black communities formed, raised families, and shaped the city's development under Dutch colonial rule. Presented by a museum historian, the discussion highlights often-overlooked histories that complicate normalized narratives of New York's past.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Writer Sophie Lewis Discusses Feminity & Feminism
Writer and academic Sophie Lewis, in conversation with scholar Emma Heaney, discusses "femmephilia" and the place of "artifical femininity" in feminism. The Anglophone word “femme” carries a freight borne of many decades of anti-ontological proletarian sex-pleasure. It refers, specifically, to self-consciously artificial femininity, in other words, the collective arts of "girl stuff" deployed against cisness. This is why all revolutionary feminism must be femmephilic, or so it is here argued—because our fight as feminists is not with femininity at all, but with femininity’s abuse. Let us at last confront the false antithesis between the feminine and the feminist, which has dogged cisnormative gender-emancipatory thought for two centuries.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Artist Biographer Shares Her Re-Released Book, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art
Artist biographer Phoebe Hoban discusses her recently re-released bestseller about Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Jean-Michel Basquiat evolved from a teenage graffiti artist into an international art star in less than a decade. Today, he is considered one of the major artists of the 20th century. Acclaimed journalist and author Phoebe Hoban eloquently portrays his life in Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Originally published in 1998, it was a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book. This edition includes a new introduction that brings readers up to speed on recent developments in Basquiat’s extraordinary posthumous career: from continuous record-breaking sales to global branding to scandals involving forgeries, most notably the fakes seized several years ago by the FBI during a raid of a Basquiat exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art is a fascinating portrait of the young artist and his time, from the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, to the booming East Village art scene, to the powerful art dealers and avaricious auction houses.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Conversations in Black Freedom Studies on Police Violence & Activism Suppression (In Person AND Online!)
This Black History Month, attend an event on Policing Blackness: Resisting Repression, Police Violence, and Surveillance. Brittany Friedman will present on a critical new text Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. Aaron G. Fountain will discuss High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America, connecting struggles over policing and education. Joshua Clark Davis will share research from Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back, expanding our understanding of repression beyond COINTELPRO. Finally, LaShawn Harris will teach about the life of Eleanor Bumpurs, which she powerfully illuminates in Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Discover The Wretch by Tullia d'Aragona, a Renaissance Masterpiece
Discover a forgotten Renaissance masterpiece at the book presentation of Tullia d'Aragona's The Wretch, Otherwise Known as Guerrino, edited by Julia Hairston and translated by John McLucas. This event features a panel discussion with Julia L. Hairston, editor, and John C. McLucas, translator. This landmark volume offers the first English translation of the earliest epic poem written by an Italian woman, presented in a bilingual, unabridged, and fully annotated edition. Part adventure tale, part literary milestone, The Wretch follows the astonishing journey of Guerrino--a nobleman kidnapped by pirates as a child and sold into slavery--through a world of abductions, same-sex seductions, fantastical beasts, and far-flung travels across Europe, Africa, Asia, and even the Purgatory of St. Patrick. Written amid the cultural and religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, the poem engages directly with the epic tradition shaped by Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. This event invites the audience to explore Tullia d'Aragona's bold reimagining of the epic genre and her pioneering role in opening its highest literary ranks to women writers.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Lecture | Learn about Urbanism & The Contemporary CIty
By presenting a particular set of works by the Office of Adrian Phiffer, this lecture aims to provoke a condition of optimism about urbanism while asking: What does urbanism still mean for the contemporary city? It will argue that from its collapse under the weight of scale, complexity, ideology, environment, and smartness, a residue remains: an urbanism without guarantees, without unanimity, without a single public, but not without use—perhaps something it has always been after all: a practice of thinking and acting as a question of relationality.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Poet/Activist & Curator Discuss Life & Artwork of Artist Judith Waterman
A special gathering and discussion between poet/activist Irena Klepfisz and curator Ariel Goldberg on the life and artwork of Judith Waterman. Waterman was a prolific visual artist who created paintings, photographs, and mixed-media works on paper between the 1960s until the last years of her life. None knew Waterman's work more intimately than Klepfisz, who enjoyed a 38-year partnership with Waterman, which offers a unique perspective on lesbian cultural organizing across mediums, and support structures within romantic, long-term lesbian relationships between artists.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Lecture | Explore the World of Online Mapping & Data Visualization with a Harvard Professor
Eric Rodenbeck, founder of award-winning design and technology studio Stamen, and Lecturer in Architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, delves into the emerging world of online mapping and data visualization. Rodenbeck's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Vice, Scientific American, and many other publications. The Dalai Lama trusted him to make maps of what science knows about human emotions, the Getty trusted him to help tell the world about Ed Ruscha's hundreds of thousands of automatic photographs of Los Angeles, Facebook trusted him to tell stories about human mobility during COVID, and the Audubon society trusted him to make maps of North American bird ranges in different client change scenarios. Radically interdisciplinary and collaborative, his work has been featured in galleries and museums around the world and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. In 2017, Stamen was awarded the National Design Award for Interaction Design by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Author Jenny Tinghui Zhang Launches Her New Novel, Superfan
Jenny Tinghui Zhang talks about her new novel, Superfan, in conversation with Kylie Lucia Wu. From National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree Jenny Tinghui Zhang, a novel about a pop idol and his superfan, whose stories shockingly collide. Dazzling, entrancing, and deeply heartfelt, Superfan is about fandom in all its magic and terror, and the extreme lengths to which we go to rid ourselves of loneliness.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 5
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Thu, Feb 5
7:30 pm
Regular: $30
Member: $0
7:30 pm
Regular: $30
Member: $0
Join the Club!
Book Discussion | Expert Discusses His Book, Failure: Russia under Putin
Attend a lecture by history and civics scholar Harley Balzer on the new book he edited, Failure: Russia under Putin. Moderated by Peter Clement. Harley Balzer and Peter Clement will provide a summary of the volume, and Balzer will provide an update on his chapter on Human Capital.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
12:00 pm
Free
12:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Economics, Power, and the Limits of Intervention (Online!)
Examine the relationship between economic development, self-determination, and Western intervention abroad. Drawing from a recent, award-recognized book, the discussion explores how colonialism and modern military involvement have shaped global inequalities, challenging conventional assumptions about progress and reform. Led by a prominent economist and public intellectual, the program offers a critical perspective on development, power, and responsibility in the modern world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Expert Insights: Seeing Desire in Medieval Art
Museum experts examine depictions of the human figure in medieval works, and the talk discusses relationships, identity, and expression in history, uncovering new ways to engage with these powerful works of art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | The Future of Food Systems: Animal Welfare, Public Health, & Environment (In Person AND Online!)
The NYU Food Impact Program will launch with a roundtable discussion between program founders Sonali McDermid and Jeff Sebo and Environmental Studies faculty Becca Franks, Christopher Schlottmann, David Kanter, and Matthew Hayek, with opening remarks from CEAP Founding Director Dale Jamieson. Drawing on perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, the discussion will range from how food systems affect animal welfare, public health, and the environment to how individual, corporate, and governmental action can overcome obstacles to reform. There will also be a discussion with the audience, and a reception will follow for in-person guests.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss the Concept of Innocence During Times of Authoritarianism
A conversation between Miriam Ticktin, Serene Khader, and Camille Robcis, drawing on Miriam Ticktin's new book, Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World. In this timely and bold book, Miriam Ticktin explores how a concept that consistently appears as a moral good actually ends up creating harm for so many. Claims to innocence protect migrant children, but often at the expense of their parents; claims to the innocence of the fetus work to punish women. Ticktin shows how innocence structures political relationships, focusing on individual victims and saviors, while foreclosing forms of collective responsibility. Ultimately, she wants to understand how the discourse around innocence functions, what gives it such power, and why we are so compelled by it, while showing that alternative political forms already exist. She examines this process across various domains, from migration, science, and environmentalism to racial and reproductive justice.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
4:15 pm
Free
4:15 pm
Free
Talk | Experimental Lecture + Film Screening with Genre-Defying Filmmaker Iva Radivojević
Lauded filmmaker Iva Radivojević hosts a lecture where time and space are subjective phenomena. Attendees will be guided through Radivojević's genre-defying collection of films, and gather their numerous wandering protagonists. All the while, you will be writing a prose poem. The protagonists will assemble together to journey forward into a brand new film, guided by Specter, who will narrate the audience's thoughts and dreams. The event will include a special screening of her newest film When The Phone Rang (2024), which received the Special Mention Award at the 77th Locarno Film Festival.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Writer John Sayles Discusses His New Book, Crucible
This event features filmmaker and author John Sayles discussing his new novel, Crucible, with Professor Jerry Carlson. Sayles has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and once for the National Book Award. John Sayles’ Crucible is a complex and vast historical novel about Henry Ford — the Elon Musk of his day, in more ways than one — and his attempt to rule not only an automotive empire but the rambunctious city of Detroit. It is an epic tale ranging from the 1920s through the second World War, featuring violent labor disputes, misbegotten jungle expeditions, a tragic race riot, and the Gestapo tactics of Ford’s private army.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Art in Focus: Slow Observance and Conversation
Take a moment to slow down and connect with a single work of art through guided observation and group discussion. No background in art is needed--just curiosity and openness. This relaxed, welcoming program invites all adult learners to engage deeply with one piece at a time. Note: Space is limited; first-come, first-served. Stickers are distributed 15 minutes before the program starts.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Club | Discuss Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
At this meeting, the group will be discussing Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, in preparation for the upcoming movie adaptation. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, is forced to seek shelter from a hazardous snow storm at Wuthering Heights. During his stay, he is informed of the area's passionate past and the eventual betrayal that affects the next generation’s heirs to this day. Bronte's tragic novel is a timeless, dark love story that revolves around the themes of revenge, social class, and race. The group plans to discuss the book for an hour and a half. While your hosts will come with some talking points and questions to kick off discussion, please don’t be afraid to share your thoughts and ask questions openly. All opinions are valid!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 6
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Learn More about the Artwork of Lotty Rosenfeld
Gain new insights about the work of Lotty Rosenfeld from this conversation with the artist Cristóbal Lehyt and exhibition co-curator Julia Bryan-Wilson. Together they will consider Rosenfeld’s enduring impact and influence on contemporary Chilean visual artists.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Feb 7
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion |
Exploring Immigrant Life and Feminist Vision in Hester Street
Exploring Immigrant Life and Feminist Vision in Hester Street (Online!)
Dr. Julia Wagner discusses her new book, Hester Street, the first to focus exclusively on Joan Micklin Silver’s groundbreaking 1975 film. Marking the film’s 50th anniversary, the talk explores its portrayal of Jewish immigrant life, feminist storytelling, and Yiddish culture, offering fresh insights into a landmark of American cinema.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, Feb 8
2:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish, registration required...
2:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish, registration required...
Lecture | Anthropologist/Sociologist Explores Art & the Far-Right Culture War
Attend a lecture by historical anthropologist and sociologist Kristof Nagy on artists and the far-right in the global culture wars. Moderated by Gail Archer. Why are artists increasingly aligning with far-right movements in Eastern Europe and beyond? This talk examines the social foundations of the emerging coalition between far-right regimes and cultural producers, challenging conventional narratives about progressive art and repressive politics. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with the Hungarian Academy of Arts--a cultural flagship institution of Viktor Orban's Hungary--this presentation offers a political-economic analysis of contemporary culture wars. The talk reveals how the long downturn of US global hegemony, combined with the neoliberal restructuring of cultural markets, has created conditions for artists to become willing participants in national-protectionist and imperial projects. Besides mapping the emergence of this unexpected coalition, the talk also explores how these alliances succeed through institutional mechanisms--from patronage systems to the social penetration of local cultural production--and why previous liberal resistance movements have failed. Ultimately, this talk aims to offer takeaways beyond the case of Hungary by providing a novel understanding of culture wars as the rapid transformation of the art-patronage relation amid new economic arrangements and imperial ambitions.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
12:00 pm
Free
12:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Political Experts Discuss Central Asia in Global Politics
Hear the lecture “Backlash: How Central Asia is Reshaping China’s Rise” featuring Bradley Jardine, Managing Director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, and Edward Lemon, President of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. As global power dynamics continue to fragment, Central Asia stands at the crossroads of strategic opportunity and geopolitical constraint. Long cast as a peripheral zone of great power competition within the spheres of influence of Russia and China, the region is increasingly asserting itself as an autonomous actor balancing relationships with Russia, China, the United States, the European Union, Turkey, India, and the Gulf states through multivector diplomacy. This lecture explores how Central Asian governments and publics are leveraging shifting global alignments, critical mineral wealth, and emerging transit corridors to gain leverage and resist dependency. In an era defined by contested global orders and technological competition, Central Asia has the potential to be not just a bridge between East and West, but a key set of actors asserting themselves in a multipolar world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Experts Discuss Structural Violence & Policing, Sharing the New Book, Engineered Conflict
Scholar David Omotoso Stovall discusses his book Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago with policing expert and CUNY professor Alex Vitale and NYPL's Senior Director of Reading and Engagement Brian Jones. With a novel approach to the question of how state-sanctioned violence and abandonment impacts low-income communities, Engineered Conflict uses examples from Chicago's recent history to shed light on the politics of disposability through housing instability, criminalization, and school closures.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Promoting Math Through Social Media (Online!)
Learn how educators use videos, memes, and creative approaches to make math accessible, engaging, and inspiring for students everywhere. Witness a lively online conversation about sharing the joy of math through social media.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | A True Story of Espionage and Resistance in WWII (Online!)
Explore the life of Joseph Scheinmann, a Jewish youth turned spy in the French Resistance. From daring escapes to secret missions and imprisonment in Nazi camps, his story of courage, cunning, and survival unfolds through vintage photographs, letters, and firsthand accounts.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Musicologist Shares his New Book, Sounds of Survival
Hear about the new nonfiction book, Sounds of Survival, which explores the central role played by Jews in creating classical music in Poland. It examines an integrated Polish and Polish Jewish musical community as its members contended with antisemitism in the 1930s, attempted to survive the Nazi occupation, and established a renewed musical culture amid the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust. Reconstructing these musicians' lives from the 1920s into the 1950s, Mackenzie Pierce argues that despite nearly unimaginable violence, many Polish musicians treated the war as a time of reinvention and cultural preservation. Their faith that music was a source of cultural continuity, however, also marginalized experiences of wartime loss, especially those of Jewish victims and survivors of the Holocaust.'
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 9
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Afghan Artists on Creativity and Survival Under Repression (Online!)
Artists from Afghanistan and the diaspora come together for a discussion on creating art under censorship, displacement, and political repression. Drawing on lived experiences both inside and outside the country, the conversation examines how artistic practice becomes a form of resistance, testimony, and survival, emphasizing the resilience and urgency of Afghan artistic voices today.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss Urban Planning across Time & Space
Moderator Jorge Otero-Pailos (Director and Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation) in conversation with three Fellows: Ludovico Centis with The Empire architecture firm, Lorenzo Gatta with University of Italian Switzerland, and Natsumi Nonaka. They will discuss urban planning in consideration of the Iroquois, the Romans, and the Manhattan Project at Columbia.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Discuss Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Participate in a group book discussion of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Heathcliff comes to the brooding mansion of Wuthering Heights as an orphan child. Cathy is the daughter of the wealthy family that takes him in. They are drawn together from the moment they meet, their love consuming, destructive, and full of desire. They cannot be together, and yet they cannot stay apart. The consequences will haunt generations. From the moment of his adoption by the Earnshaws, the foundling boy Heathcliff devotes himself to their young daughter Catherine. Growing up together, the two share a love that blossoms into romance, until Catherine's hurtful betrayal. But Heathcliff's emotions know no bounds and acknowledge no limits—not even death. Determined to secure the family estate of Wuthering Heights as his own, the tyrannical Heathcliff vents his bitterness on his and Catherine's heirs, manipulating lives and shaping destinies under the influence of a passion that has curdled into obsession.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Lecture | Housing Reform and the Settlement House Movement
A talk examining the life and legacy of Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, a pioneering figure in the American settlement house movement and early efforts toward affordable housing reform. Drawing from a recent biography, the discussion explores how social reformers at the turn of the 20th century addressed urban poverty, immigrant life, and housing conditions through community-based initiatives.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Portraits and the Failure of State Protection
Brian Maguire’s Portraits confront systemic violence and the absence of justice. Through portraiture created in close dialogue with affected families and communities, Maguire bears witness to lives erased and displaced in Missoula, Bentiu, and Ciudad Juárez. The evening includes remarks by the artist, followed by a reception.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Authors Discuss Literary Figure Bennett Cerf (In Person AND Online!)
Biographer Gayle Feldman speaks bout publishing giant Bennett Cerf with author Jonathan Galassi. Bennett Cerf co-founded Random House in the 1920s; by the 1960s, it was the greatest literary publisher in the U.S. There was nothing random about this American original who changed our culture by straddling books, Broadway, Hollywood, and TV.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Lecture | Perception, Belief, and Performance
Interdisciplinary artist Derek DelGaudio joins Melissa Maxwell for a conversation about perception, belief, and the mechanics of meaning-making. DelGaudio's work spans live performance, film, and writing, and is known for exploring how narratives are built and experienced. He is an Artist in Residence at Walt Disney Imagineering and co-founded a performing arts collective.
The discussion offers insight into contemporary performance practices and how art can reshape how audiences understand themselves and the world around them.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 10
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Learn about Building a Career in Fashion with Project Runway Canada's Jeanne Beker (+ Memoir Discussion)
What does it take to build a meaningful and resilient career in the business of fashion? Attend a fireside chat with Jeanne Beker, a renowned Canadian fashion journalist and broadcaster famous for hosting FashionTelevision for 27 years and for her involvem. Dr. Ben Barry, Dean of the School of Fashion and the Joseph and Gail Gromek Professor for Fashion Business, will moderate. The event will be followed by a book signing of her new memoir, Heart on My Sleeve. Drawing from her new memoir, Heart on My Sleeve, and her iconic career as a fashion journalist, Jeanne will share insights on navigating an ever-shifting industry. She will discuss what it takes to build a meaningful and resilient career in the business of fashion. Come with questions about entrepreneurship, strategic partnerships, media innovation, and building a successful career in fashion businesses.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
10:00 am
Free
10:00 am
Free
Book Discussion | Shaping Cities Through Spatial Economic Planning (Online!)
This virtual book launch introduces Tools for Spatial Economic Planning, a practical guide to analyzing and shaping the economic and spatial structures of rapidly urbanizing regions. The authors present key frameworks and case studies, followed by perspectives from global development organizations on how these tools are applied in real-world planning and policy contexts.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
11:00 am
Free
11:00 am
Free
Book Discussion | Uncovering Forgotten Histories in the Early US Modern Art Market (Online!)
Independent scholar Julia May Boddewyn presents her new book, The Valentine Gallery, tracing the overlooked story of Valentine Dudensing, Matisse, Picasso, and the U.S. market for modern art (1926–1947). The talk highlights Boddewyn’s research methods and key findings, followed by an audience Q&A.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
12:00 pm
Free
12:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Learn How a Historic Mansion Turned into a Museum
Join a museum educator for a brief gallery talk tracing how a Gilded Age mansion was transformed into a world-class art museum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Historian Shares Her New Book, Road to Nowhere: How a Highway Map Wrecked Baltimore
Attend an event with Emily Lieb, Ph.D., as she discusses her book, Road to Nowhere: How a Highway Map Wrecked Baltimore. Drawing on land records, oral history, media coverage, and policy documents, Lieb demystifies blockbusting, redlining, and prejudicial lending, highlighting the national patterns at work in a single neighborhood. The result is an absorbing story about the deliberate decisions that produced racial inequalities in housing, jobs, health, and wealth—as well as a testament to the ingenuity of the residents who fought to stay in their homes, down to today.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
4:15 pm
Free
4:15 pm
Free
Book Club | Read & Discuss Poetry by Antonia Pozzi
In this poetry discussion group, attendees will talk about ten poems by Antonia Pozzi, translated from the Italian by Amy Newman. You can find a PDF copy attached to the linked page. Please bring your printed copy to the discussion; the group will be doing close readings and analysis of the poems.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Bilingual Interview with Poet Yarisa Colón Torres
Artist-in-residence Sonia Megías hosts an interview with Yarisa Colón Torres, a Puerto Rican poet, educator, and handmade book creator who has led workshops and collaborated on multidisciplinary projects centered on the written word. She recently co-created Viento Abajo, an artisanal limited-edition publication. This event is bilingual (English & Spanish).
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Motherhood and Rituals in Ancient Israel (Online!)
Professor Emerita Susan Ackerman explores pregnancy and childbirth practices in ancient Israel, tracing rituals from conception to delivery. Drawing on comparisons with Hatti, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, the talk examines protective amulets, incantations, anointing oils, and other practices that illuminate the spiritual and cultural life of mothers-to-be in the ancient world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
6:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish, reservation required
6:00 pm
pay-what-you-wish, reservation required
Book Discussion | Quiet Reading Meet Up
Bring a book or check one out of the library to read to yourself for one hour. After that, spend an hour socializing with those around you!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Two Authors Celebrate the Launch of Their New Books
Celebrate two new books by New School Faculty, Lana Lin and Radhika Subramaniam. Situated between memoir, social criticism, and conceptual art, Lin’s The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam narrates a 25-year queer love story through the literary form of ventriloquism that Gertrude Stein invented in her 1933 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and responds to the modernist classic by raising the Asian understory to the surface. Subramaniam’s Footprint: Four Itineraries probes the long history of the footprint’s manifestation in the human imagination—signifying mobility and occupation, inquiry and imperialism, absence and presence, trace, and impact—to ask if it is yet possible to tread lightly on our world. The event will feature a conversation between the two writers and invite questions and discussion, followed by a celebratory reception.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Upcoming Romance Book Talk with Authors & Publishing Professionals (In Person AND Online!)
Hear the "buzz" directly from authors and publishing industry professionals about new and upcoming titles in romance. Free and advance copies available while supplies last! Enjoy a delightful evening filled with literature, engaging discussions, and opportunities to meet authors and fellow passionate book lovers. Here's what to expect:
Attend panels featuring Romance writers
Learn about new and upcoming titles from Penguin Random House staff
Browse free and advanced reader copies of titles by a range of authors in the Romance genre
Giveaways while supplies last
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Talk | Photographers Discuss Their Craft & New Book of Photography, West West: Twin Perspectives Of The American West
Experience the captivating vision of photographers Maryam Eisler and Alexei Riboud in West, West, a dual exploration of the American West's enduring allure. Moderated by curator Carrie Scott, the discussion will examine how both artists interpret the landscapes, light, and legends that have inspired generations of creators. From past filmmakers, photographers, and painters in the NAC's permanent collection to contemporary voices, this program celebrates the timeless pilgrimage westward. Discover how West, West captures the mythic frontier as a space for imagination, reflection, and creative renewal. The limited-edition book will be available for purchase.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 11
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Abstract Expressionist Artist's Transformative Motifs
Discover a selection of panel paintings by Philip Guston from the late 1960s and early 1970s through an immersive viewing session with museum experts. The discussion explores how Guston’s work redefined motifs and interacted with the American cultural landscape, providing new insights and perspectives on this important phase of his career.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Talk | Explore the Transforming Art Landscape in the UAE
The talk explores the dramatic changes that happened after the 2006 announcement of plans for a Louvre and a Guggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. In the decade between the museums' announcement and the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2017, the ways artists worked changed as did the ways curators promoted their work, and the forms of arts organizations themselves shifted – taken together, the UAE case offers insight into how museum and artistic practice is shifting in the 21st century.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Artist Tom Sachs Shares His New Book, Tom Sachs Guide (+ Q&A and Signing)
Artist Tom Sachs shares his new book, Tom Sachs Guide, in conversation with the book’s contributors, Yeju Choi and Howie Kahn. A 21st-century creative force, Tom Sachs’s critically acclaimed practice spans sculpture, installation, painting, film, ceramics, and industrial design. Tom Sachs Guide is the definitive exploration of the inimitable New York-based artist’s prolific material, intellectual, cultural, and commercial output. In this exclusive event, Sachs, Choi and Kahn will offer insights into Sach’s creative process and studio practice, and share stories from the book about longstanding collaborations with Nike, immersive reinterpretations of NASA missions, and more. Audience Q&A and book signing to follow.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Discover the life of Harlem Renaissance icon A'Lelia Walker with Emmy-winning journalist and NYT bestselling author A'Lelia Bundles (Online!)
Journalist and author A’Lelia Bundles discusses the life and impact of A’Lelia Walker. Explore Walker’s influence on Harlem’s cultural scene, social circles, and artistic development during the Harlem Renaissance. The discussion, moderated by Allison Robinson, highlights rare personal artifacts and the legacies of this remarkable woman.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Expert Discusses Works by Edgar Degas & Impressionism
This talk by Eleanor Sypher will dive into the life of Edgar Degas (1834-1917). Degas kept somewhat aloof from the Impressionists, although he was in sympathy with their aim of breaking away from the academic style of art, nor did he paint outside. He was a superb draftsman in his modeling of the human form. Showing the interplay of light, shade, and movement; more than half of his works depict the ballet dancer. He represented figures in Parisian life and experimented in color and form with racehorses and nude women bathing; cultivating ideas from Japanese prints — off-center compositions and scenes of everyday life.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:00 pm
$5, tickets required
6:00 pm
$5, tickets required
Discussion | Fashion Experts & Innovators Discuss the Future of Fashion, Sustainability, & Technology
This conversation brings together fashion industry veterans and innovators who are directly shaping the intersection of fashion, sustainability, and technology. Together, they will explore how sustainability priorities have changed since the pandemic, examine where AI is delivering meaningful environmental progress--and where its influence remains more experimental than revolutionary--and share candid insights from inside the systems and supply chains driving today's fashion transformation. The fashion industry is navigating one of its most transformative periods in decades. From shifting definitions of sustainability to the disruptive rise of artificial intelligence, the rules that once guided fashion's relationship with people and the planet are rapidly evolving.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Thu, Feb 12
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Free Black Communities in 19th-Century Manhattan (Online!)
The program explores neighborhoods that supported Black-owned businesses, churches, and social institutions, tracing how these vibrant communities shaped cultural and social life before the movement of Black populations further uptown. Presented by a preservation educator, the discussion highlights an often-overlooked chapter in New York City history.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Exploring the Concept of Infinity (Online!)
Participate in an online book club discussion of A Guide to Infinity: Ten Mathematical Journeys. Discover how mathematicians explore infinity in everyday work and enjoy a fascinating journey into big ideas.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Roundtable Talk on Sacred places, Memory, & Restoration
Experience a thought-provoking panel discussion examining the psychic, cultural, and spiritual significance of sacred places marked by violence, loss, and displacement. Participants:
Pamela Cooper-White, leading scholar at the intersection of psychology, religion, and psychoanalysis
Suleiman Ali Mourad, Myra M. Sampson Chair Professor of Religion and Middle East Studies, Smith College
Diane O'Donoghue, art historian and psychoanalytic scholar
Jane G. Tillman, board-certified clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Once There Was a Town: Preserving Jewish Life After the Holocaust
Discover how Holocaust survivors recorded the lives, families, and communities lost in the war. Author Jane Ziegelman explores the remarkable yizkor books that preserve the memory of vanished towns and the resilience of Jewish cultural life.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Award-Winning Journalists Discuss Their New Book, Miracle Children
Journalists Katie Benner and Erica L. Green discuss their new book, Miracle Children, speaking with education expert Dr. Chris Emdin. A riveting investigation into a school, a scam, and a notorious college admissions scandal that exposes the inequalities and racial segregation of American education, from two award-winning New York Times journalists. Gripping and illuminating, Miracle Children argues that the lesson of T.M. Landry is not that the school gamed the system but that it played by the rules--its abuses and deceptions the outcome of segregated schools, inequitable education, and the belief that elite colleges are the nation's last path to life-changing economic opportunity. Donations go to Design Your Future, Inc., which empowers high school students by providing hands-on learning, mentorship, and career-building opportunities that bridge the gap between school-based education and real-world employment.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Music, Neuroscience, and the Science of Attraction
This Valentine's-themed discussion blends live jazz with neuroscience. The program explores how brains communicate through aggression, attraction, and cooperation. Drawing on research on betta fish, known for their dramatic fighting displays and unusual courtship rituals, the discussion examines how emotion and intent are signaled. Parallels emerge between neural circuits, animal behavior, and jazz improvisation. Through live music and conversation, the event reveals how communication unfolds within biological and musical constraints.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Hear from Young African American Creators
This event unites young African-American creators at the convergence of art, technology, science, and the humanities. This revolutionary panel explores XR immersion; AR integration; VR design and development; and AI collaboration in storytelling, visual design, and music creation. Through discussion and interactive demonstrations, creators reveal how emerging technologies bridge music and art, sound and visuals, imagination and innovation, blurring time and space. This transformative convergence expands understanding, nurtures creativity, and inspires growth, offering audiences fresh perspectives on the limitless possibilities of artistic expression. Panelists:
Akeem
Akil Cooper
Julian Houston
Kambaba
King Willonius
There are two ways to access this event: 1. General Admission, first-come first-served. Just show up! 2. Fast Track opening the Monday before the event at noon.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 12
7:30 pm
Free
7:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Expert Insights: Seeing Desire in Medieval Art
Museum experts examine depictions of the human figure in medieval works, and the talk discusses relationships, identity, and expression in history, uncovering new ways to engage with these powerful works of art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 13
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Explore Artistic Engagement with Real Water
From pools of water created by artists like Nancy Holt and Mary Miss in the 1970s, to Rebecca Belmore’s 2005 projection on water entitled Fountain, this talk charts an artistic lineage in which water operates as a medium for the creation of moving images. Artistic engagement with real water has generated new types of environmental images and new models of ecological relation, embodying an important alternative to journalistic modes of moving image representation in environmentalist contexts. The fluid “cinematic” works of this talk expand and reframe expectations about what art can or should do amidst environmental crises.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 13
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Listening to the Rhythms of Gnawan Music
Join Samir LanGus for an exploration of Gnawan music, uncovering how tradition and improvisation intersect in this Moroccan musical practice. The talk highlights connections to the museum’s collection while offering insight into rhythm, sound, and cultural context.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 13
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Forum | Publishing & Political Culture: Media Production & Radical Politics in 2026
Creative Publishing & Critical Journalism (CPCJ) at The New School for Social Research, in partnership with Woodbine Research Center, presents a discussion on political publishing and its publics. Writers and editors at the forefront of a growing wave of new leftist media production address the state of publishing, journalism, and political speech at a time of immense political and economic challenge, and possibilities for the future.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 13
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Shaping Stories and How We See Ourselves
Artist Deborah Roberts joins television writer and producer Mara Brock Akil for a public conversation exploring creativity, representation, and the power of storytelling across visual art and media. Drawing on Brock Akil's extensive career in television and film, the discussion reflects on cultural narratives and the ways stories shape how we see ourselves and others.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 13
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Death Cafe Discussion Group
An informal, group-directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. The purpose of Death Cafe is "to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives." This is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Feb 14
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Talk | Ask a Mathematician Anything! (Online!)
Join Dr. Arthur Benjamin for a one-hour interactive online session. Bring your questions about math, ideas, or curious concepts, and hear Dr. Benjamin share insights from his work as a mathematician, magician, NYT bestselling author, and TED speaker with over 50 million views.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 16
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Explore the Creative Movement of Muslim Futurism
This talk introduces Muslim futurism as a creative movement that uses fashion, art, and imagination to envision new ways of being, believing, and belonging. Drawing on her work as a scholar-artist, Reyhab Patel's talk will explore how everyday acts like getting dressed can become meaningful expressions of faith, identity, and future-making. Through visual culture and storytelling, this talk invites audiences to see Muslim futurism not as speculation alone, but as a lived and creative practice that imagines what comes next. Introduction by Romana Mirza, Assistant Professor, Fashion Management & Social Justice, School of Fashion, Parsons School of Design, The New School.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | The Journey of a Renaissance Masterpiece
Explore the modern history of the Mantuan Roundel with museum experts, tracing its rediscovery and acquisition. The talk highlights how scholarship, connoisseurship, and collecting practices shape the life of a Renaissance work of art, offering new insights and behind-the-scenes stories.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Discussion of Beloved by Toni Morrison
Discuss the classic novel Beloved by Toni Morrison. Synopsis: Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Scholar Discusses Ancient Monuments in Ottoman Greece
Alessia Zambon, of the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines discusses her project, "Western travelers, local emissaries and ancient monuments in Ottoman Greece (1784–1834)." Her research focuses on the explorations and acquisitions of antiquities by western travelers and local emissaries in Southern Italy, the Ottoman Empire and Greece in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and on the history of collections in Europe.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Interdisciplinary Artst Shares His New Book about COntemporary Art
Margot Bouman in conversation with Isaiah Winters about her new book, Sampling and Site-Specific Practice in Contemporary Art. Samples take many forms: quotations of other cultural works; replicas of other objects; reenactments of works by other artists; or fragments that are quite literally cut or removed from other works of art, design, or media. This discussion will excavate the shared frameworks of meaning that underpin the multifaceted, multidimensional and medium-fluid works that result.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
5:15 pm
Free
5:15 pm
Free
Talk | Learn about Antisemitism & Video Games
Hear a fascinating discussion by Jewish Studies scholar Joshua Lambert on his research on antisemitism and violence in online games. For almost half a century, popular, commercial video games have made it the player’s task to kill Nazis. Why did Jewish characters not appear as victims, Allied soldiers, or resistance fighters in such games throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and why did they begin appearing in those roles, suddenly, in the mid-2010s? It was only after Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds (2009) that commercial game developers began to include Jews and Jewishness prominently in their Nazi-killing simulators. Examining entries in the Wolfenstein series, and touching briefly on Call of Duty: WWII, this talk demonstrates Tarantino’s singular and not necessarily salutary influence on video games, and explains one unsettling way that Jewishness figures in the most popular contemporary cultural medium.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Author & Journalist Svetlana Satchkova Shares Her New Novel, The Undead
Experience a book talk by Svetlana Satchkova about her new novel, The Undead: A Novel of Modern Russia. Svetlana Satchkova is a Russian-born journalist and novelist who immigrated to the United States in 2016. She covers culture and politics, with bylines in the Rumpus, Newsweek, LARB, the Independent, and others. In this darkly funny and emotionally resonant novel of contemporary Russia, a young filmmaker unexpectedly finds herself targeted by an authoritarian regime—despite her best efforts to stay out of politics. The Undead is a layered and sharply observant portrait of an artist caught in the machinery of state power, and the choices one faces in a system where even indifference can be dangerous. When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie, it seems like a promising start to her indie film career. But her jokey lo-fi picture soon attracts the attention of the autocratic state, and Maya is swept into a nightmarish system where logic breaks down, and no one is safe.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Learn about the Life of Influential Civil Rights Leader Rev. James Lawson Jr. (In Person AND Online!)
Explore the life of one of the most influential yet unheralded heroes of the civil rights era, Rev. James Lawson Jr. Emily Yellin, Lawson's memoir collaborator, and his son, John Lawson, discuss his legacy. Nonviolent is a personal portrait of a principal architect of the civil rights era. Rev. James Lawson Jr. spent his life fighting racial and economic injustice. A peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he taught and organized nonviolent direct action, guiding generations of civil rights activists. Drawing on decades of activism--from studying independence movements abroad to serving prison time for refusing the Korean War draft--Nonviolent illuminates the life of a man who fought oppression and advanced equality, dignity, and liberty.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Scholars Discuss New Book Civility Unbound: Contesting a Democratic Value
This conversation brings together contributors to Civility Unbound to examine how civility operates across culture, identity, media, and the arts. Drawing on perspectives from scholarship, journalism, and creative practice, the discussion will explore civility’s dual role in public life—how it can foster democratic dialogue while also, at times, limit challenges to injustice. The program features Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University; Kwame Anthony Appiah, University Professor of Philosophy and Law at NYU; and Catharine Stimpson, University Professor and Dean Emerita at NYU, moderated by Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 17
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Learn How a Historic Mansion Turned into a Museum
Join a museum educator for a brief gallery talk tracing how a Gilded Age mansion was transformed into a world-class art museum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Talk | Bird Photographer Discusses His Craft
This talk follows bird photographer Isaac Grant on safari, where photographing mammals becomes a natural extension of photographing birds. Skills such as patience, reading animal behavior, working with light, and precise timing are just as vital when capturing birds as they are when photographing Africa’s iconic mammals. Through images and stories from the field, Isaac Grant explores the shared techniques and challenges of photographing wings and giants alike, showing how a bird photographer’s eye adapts seamlessly to the full diversity of African wildlife.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Schoalr Explores the War on Terror & Its Effect on East Africa
This talk explores the entanglement of militarism, imperialism, and liberal-democratic governance in Kenya today, asking what a view from East Africa can tell us about the shifting configurations and lived realities of post 9/11 imperial warfare. Examining the cultural politics of security, anthropology scholar Samar Al-Bulushi illustrates that the Kenyan war against the militant group Al-Shabaab has become a means to produce new imaginaries and subjectivities about Kenya's place in the world. Meanwhile, Kenya's alignment with the U.S. government provides cover for the criminalization and policing of the country's Muslim minority population.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Explore Political Expression in Academia
Professor Philip Swan of Hunter College will be joined by Laura Beltz, Director of Policy Reform and Ryne Weiss, Director of Research, at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) as well as Manhattan Institute Fellows John Ketcham and Renu Mukherjee in a discussion exploring ways academia can represent the diverse political views of our larger society while also honoring the academic freedom of faculty and students. The speakers from FIRE will provide information on recent free speech challenges, will discuss where Hunter ranks on the issue of free speech, and suggest policies that can help us navigate this volatile environment with our principles of fairness intact. The speakers from the Manhattan Institute and City Journal will share insights from the new City Journal College Rankings, a project that provides students and families with information on how different universities value free speech, ideological diversity, classroom experience, and other factors often excluded from traditional college ranking systems, such as U.S. News & World Report.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Quiet Reading Meet Up
Bring a book or check one out of the library to read to yourself for one hour. After that, spend an hour socializing with those around you!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Activist Shares His New Book about Political Prisoner Jimmy Lai, The Troublemaker (In Person AND Online!)
Learn about the extraordinary story of businessman, democracy activist, and political prisoner Jimmy Lai. Mark Clifford’s new book is “a sympathetic and inspiring biography” (The Wall Street Journal) of billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist who became China’s most famous political prisoner. Lai escaped China at 12 and worked in Hong Kong factories, eventually owning one and becoming a global leader in “fast fashion.” After Tiananmen Square, he entered the media industry with Next and Apple Daily, publications critical of the Chinese Communist Party, eventually meeting with American officials about human rights and free speech; since 2020 he has been in solitary confinement in China. Clifford, a writer who is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, speaks about Lai’s extraordinary story with Evan Osnos, a staff writer at The New Yorker.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Artists Discuss Citywide On the Flip Side Exhibition
This talk explores On the Flip Side, a citywide exhibition that transforms JCDecaux bus shelters across New York City, Chicago, and Boston into sites for intimate photographic encounters. In this event, each of the artists will reflect on what it means for deeply personal images—rooted in family, heritage, gender identity, material value, and aspiration—to appear in spaces typically reserved for advertising, and how public circulation reshapes their meaning. Moderated by Public Art Fund Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand, the talk centers on the practices of Kennedi Carter, Lougè Delcy, Camila Falquez, Ruby Okoro, Dana Scruggs, and Juan Veloz—artists whose commercial work defines our contemporary moment, capturing celebrities for global platforms. Meanwhile, their fine art practices–often seen in museums and galleries–foreground tenderness and interiority, with ties to contemporary and historic cultural narratives. The discussion will examine how these photographers navigate the boundary between commercial and fine art production, and how On the Flip Side “flips” expectations by foregrounding their personal visions within the cityscape of New York, Boston and Chicago.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Food Studies Expert Marion Nestle Shares Her New Book, What To Eat Now
Author Marion Nestle is the co-founder of NYU's pioneering food studies program, as well as the author of important nutrition bestsellers such as Food Politics and Safe Food. In What to Eat Now, she takes the reader--aisle by aisle--through the American supermarket. Using wit and common sense, she establishes the basics of good nutrition, food safety, and ethical and sustainable eating, and gives readers a close-up look at the web of interests that food has to navigate before it gets to your shopping basket. Chef Jose Andres calls Nestle "an inspiration", while Nik Sharma (The Flavor Equation) says this latest book "should be required reading for anyone who eats."
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Award-Winning Author Shares Her New Young Adult Novel, Goodbye and Everything After
Mae Coyiuto discusses her new young adult book, Goodbye and Everything After, with Shannon C.F. Rogers. A teen girl comes face-to-face with the ghost of her recently deceased dad when she ignores a strict Filipino superstition in this contemporary YA novel that tackles grief, family tension, and first love.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Media Scholars Discuss the Concept of the Double in Hindi Cinema
Media experts discuss Storytelling in Hindi Cinema, a book that seeks to understand the distinctive character of Hindi Cinema through the figure of the double. The double, in the form of the star playing identical twins or look-alikes, or assuming more than one persona, is an ubiquitous feature of post- independence Hindi cinema that continues into contemporary Bollywood. In confounding recognition, the double poses the question of identity, the difficulty of telling who’s who and who belongs to whom, which inevitably reaches beyond the personal to the political, to questions of family, class, nation, gender and sexuality, and allows for the negotiation of conflicting impulses or social identities in the manner of myth. Furthermore, the double serves to articulate performance with narratio,n though the role play, deception, and imposture that is common to melodrama and comedy alike.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Writing Toward Possibility & Using Poetry as Power
Writer and poet Mahogany L. Browne joins the audience for an evening centered on poetry, storytelling, and social imagination. An award-winning literary voice whose work spans poetry, plays, and books for young readers. Browne has been widely recognized for her contributions to contemporary literature and cultural discourse.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Exploring Photographs with Museum Experts
Join curators and museum specialists for an in-depth look at select photographs on view. Hear fresh insights, untold stories, and engage directly with experts while exploring the artistry, context, and history behind these compelling works.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Talk | Explore Gender & Art in Post-Soviet Ukraine (In Person AND Online!)
Ukrainian-born art historian and curator Alisa Lozhkina examines how the post-Soviet art world's promise of freedom conceals enduring hierarchies and gendered inequities. This talk explores the labor of art in light of gender inequalities within the Ukrainian contemporary art sphere. Born in Ukraine, Alisa Lozhkina entered the contemporary art milieu at twenty-one, drawn to the ethos of freedom and transgression embodied by a slightly older cohort. Her attraction lay not in the artistic production itself, but in the proposition of an alternative mode of existence characterized by the subversion of conventional routines.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Art Scholars Discuss Intersections of Robert Rauschenberg's Art & Politics
This event brings together, for the first time, 15 prints by Robert Rauschenberg held in The New School's collection. Inaugurating the installation, this panel gathers experts to speak to the artist’s multifaceted practice—Juliana Ochs Dweck, Helen Hsu, and Margaret Rhee—and to consider Rauschenberg’s work in relation to journalism, activism, and politics. This program grapples with critical intersections between art and politics that spurred Rauschenberg’s practice and are an indelible part of his legacy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Art Writer Celebrates a New Edition Cookbook by Her Grandmother, Renowned Hostess Dolly Chow, Chow!
Enjoy a conversation with Carolyn Hsu-Balcer to celebrate the newest edition of Chow!, a timeless and tasteful exploration into traditional Chinese recipes and eating customs. She will be in conversation with Lin Tan, followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Scholar Discusses the Figure of the Imposter in Weimar Art & Literature
This lecture by Professor Nicola Gess explores literature as a laboratory of the social imaginary, taking the impostor as its central case study. Across novels, self-help manuals, daily newspapers, psychology, sociology, and criminology, the figure of the impostor emerges as a pervasive presence in the Weimar Republic, ranging from the charming rogue to the cynical power-player. Tracing the conditions that enabled this proliferation, the lecture examines the role literature played in shaping and disseminating the impostor figure and explores its broader significance for the interwar period - an emblematic figure through which a crises-ridden society came to recognize itself.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Gil Z. Hochberg Shares Her New Memoir, My Father, The Messiah
Enjoy a reading and discussion with Gil Z. Hochberg (Ransford Professor of Hebrew and Visual Studies, Comparative Literature, and Middle East Studies) on her newest book, My Father, The Messiah. Mikhal Dekel (Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center and the City College of New York) will join in conversation. In her memoir My Father, the Messiah, Hochberg traces a father-daughter relationship as it transforms across decades—from intense closeness in childhood to a fraught distance as Hochberg’s father Yossi becomes increasingly convinced that he is the Messiah. After building a career as a statistician in the US, Yossi returns to Israel and becomes an avid Zionist, while having several psychotic episodes. Hochberg reconstructs her relationship with her father through an archive of letters between the two, as well as her father’s personal writings, painting a tender portrait of the non-normative family life within which Hochberg’s queer identity unfolds and a heart-rending account of her father’s mental decline. Hochberg crafts a powerful story of intimacy and loss that dovetails with sea changes in Israel’s religious and political environment since the 1990s.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | History Expert Discusses His New Book, The Bowery (+ Live Ragtime Music)
History expert David Mulkins gives his illustrated talk on the history of The Bowery. Stretching 1.25 miles from Chatham Square to Cooper Square, the Bowery was an Indigenous trail, Dutch farm road, free Black homesteads, and Washington's march route during the British evacuation, and became the main street of immigrants & the working class. NYC's first entertainment district, it has seminal links to tap dance, vaudeville, Yiddish theater, Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Harry Houdini, and modern tattooing. It later became an iconic skid row, but reemerged and helped foster Abstract Expressionism, Beat literature, Free Jazz, and punk rock. Ragtime pianist Ramona Baker will be performing The Bowery Song, accompanied by vocalist Christina Britton. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Biographer Discusses Life & Legacy of Holocaust Survivor Gary "Pips" Phillips (In Person AND Online!)
Follow the extraordinary life of Holocaust survivor Gary "Pips" Phillips--whose life was shaped by survival and reinvention, through a discussion with her biographer. Born to an Aryan mother and Jewish father, Gary "Pips" Phillips could have avoided much of the Holocaust's impact. Instead, at age thirteen he chose to have a bar mitzvah just as the Nuremberg Laws took effect. Drawing on Pips's recordings and years of research, Georgette Bennett--sociologist, author, and Pips's cousin-in-law--traces his journey through escapes, rescues, and life in hiding before he emerged from the war to build a new life in America, rising from waiter to co-owner of one of the world's largest photo agencies. Bennett's biography is a detailed account of a remarkable life marked by survival, determination, and the challenges of rebuilding after trauma.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Historian Discusses Colonization & Indigenization across Africa, the Americas, & the Pacific
Hear the inaugural lecture by Andrés Bello Chair Enrique Okenve (University of the West Indies), exploring the contested meanings of “indigenous” in Equatorial Guinea within the history of the Spanish Empire. The talk examines how colonial policies, memories, and local resistance shaped processes of indigenization across Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific. Introduced by Monique Bedasse and moderated by Adrian de León (NYU History).
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 19
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Graphic Designer Discusses Exhibit on New York & the Arab World (In Person AND Online!)
Graphic designer Wael Morcos examines the history of Arabic typography in the library’s latest exhibition. Drawing on early 20th-century Arabic newspapers and books featured in the library’s latest exhibition, Niyū Yūrk: Middle Eastern and North African Lives in the City, Wael Morcos, the designer behind the exhibition’s typography, explores how Arabic type evolved in New York. Morcos highlights the often-overlooked contributions of Middle Eastern and North African creatives to the field, revealing a rich history of Arabic print in the city and its impact on visual culture.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 20
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Expert Insights: Seeing Desire in Medieval Art
Museum experts examine depictions of the human figure in medieval works, and the talk discusses relationships, identity, and expression in history, uncovering new ways to engage with these powerful works of art.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Fri, Feb 20
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Talk | Experts Speak on Fashion & Italian Cultural Heritage
This event features speakers on the subject of fashion museums, material culture, and cultural heritage as drivers of value in Italy. OPENING REMARKS Barbara Faedda (Executive Director, Italian Academy) SPEAKERS
Eugenia Paulicelli (Professor of Italian Studies, Comparative Literature, and Women's Studies at Queens College and The CUNY Graduate Center); Fashion, cultural heritage, and "Made in Italy"
Samuele Briatore (Assistant Professor at Sapienza University of Rome); The plural value of Italian fashion museums: from inventory to cultural mapping
Romana Ando (Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, Head of the Master Programme in Fashion Theory and Practices); From cultural policy to integrated heritage-industry strategy
Francesca Granata (Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design); Fashion criticism: a delay in legitimization
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 23
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Researchers Discuss the Landscape of African Theatre
What is African theatre today? Bob Vorlicky and Judy Miller have some answers to that question through their work as editors and translators of contemporary African plays. Vorlicky brings to light the otherwise neglected work of eight African women playwrights from seven different countries and linguistic spheres. He explores the politics of translating indigenous languages into English. Miller surveys exemplary works of Francophone African authors from the immediate post-colonial period to the present. She also addresses the difficulties of translating these works for the American stage.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 23
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Angela Flournoy Shares Her New Book, The Wilderness (In Person AND Online!)
WNYC's Alison Stewart and Angela Flournoy have live conversation about her newest book, The Wilderness. Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness is an era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 23
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Creatives Reflect on Robert Rauschenberg’s Impact on the Stage & Dance History
This conversation revolves around artists’ creative intersections, reflecting on Robert Rauschenberg’s impact on the stage, and the vital role of archives in preserving and reimagining dance history. As part of Robert Rauschenberg's centennial celebrations, hear a conversation exploring the artist’s creative relationships with Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham and the lasting impact of their collaborations on both dance and visual art. Moderated by Merce Cunningham Trust Scholar-in-Residence Nancy Dalva, this talk brings together leaders who now steward and shape those legacies:
Carolyn Lucas, Associate Artistic Director, Trisha Brown Dance Company
Andrea Weber, Director of Licensing and Operations Manager, Merce Cunningham Trust
Francine Snyder, Director of Archives, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 23
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | The Intersection of Mathematics and Theater (Online!)
Participate in an online discussion of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, exploring the connections between math and theater. Actors Caitlyn Duffy and Jackson Prince help bring the play to life, highlighting how mathematical ideas can shape human stories. Familiarity with the play is recommended.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Feb 23
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Club | Discuss Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Speak about Colored Television by Danzy Senna with a group! A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of Caucasia.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Exploring the Arts of Oceania with Museum Experts
Join curators and scholars for an in-depth look at selected works from the Arts of Oceania. Hear new insights, untold stories, and engage with the collection in a closer, expert-led gallery experience.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Two-Panel Program Exploring Amazonian Art & Literature
This two-panel program examines diverse artistic and literary perspectives from across the Amazonian territory. The first panel will introduce the core objectives and selected research initiatives of the project Connecting the Amazon Border. Project Directors Maria Berbara, Patricia Zalamea, and Carmen Fernández-Salvador, together with Amazonia Açu co-curator and project contributor Diana Iturralde, will explore key dimensions of Amazonian visual culture across a broad historical span, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The discussion will address topics such as cartographic imaginaries, processes of musealization, and colonial artistic production. The second panel centers on contemporary poetic and literary voices from the Amazon region. Focusing on the Amazon basin anthology (volume 3) of Ruge el bosque, a project about environmental and plurilingual poetics organized as a series of regional anthologies. This panel conversation will feature its Project Director and Editor Valeria Meiller in dialogue with Joseph M. Pierce, associate professor and founding director of Native American and Indigenous Studies initiative at Stony Brook University. The panel will also include poetry readings by poets María Clara Sharupi Jua and Elías Caurey Caurey, presented via video in Shuar and Guaraní, respectively.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Innovation and Industry Along New York’s Waterfronts (Online!)
Learn how key waterfront areas evolved from strategic landscapes during the American Revolution into major centers of industry and invention through the 20th century. Centering on the legacy of a pioneering American engineer, the discussion highlights how these shorelines helped define the city’s and the nation’s development.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Photographer David Katzenstein Shares His New Book, Distant Journeys
Steeped in documentary and reportage photography tradition, David Katzenstein imbues his work with immediacy, emotional engagement, and a deep respect for his subjects. Distant Journeys is a chronicle of humanity throughout the world developed over a forty-nine-year career. His photographs allow his first-hand experience of cultures and peoples to be shared with the audience as though they were present at the scene. David will present a visual presentation of some of the work and recount some of his experiences travelling the world in search of cultures and peoples. The book will be available for purchase.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Artist Launches Her New Graphic Novel, Just Between Us
Adeline Kon launches her new graphic novel, Just Between Us, in conversation with illustrator Sylvia Bi. In this gorgeous debut graphic novel, Lydia tries to fall back in love with figure skating without falling for her competition. Adeline Kon is a freelance illustrator and designer, and Just Between Us is their debut graphic novel.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Feb 24
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Writing Under Confinement in the Nazi Ghettos (Online!)
Author and scholar Sven-Erik Rose discusses literature written by Jewish authors imprisoned in the Warsaw, Łódź, and Vilna ghettos. Drawing from poetry and prose created under extreme repression, the talk examines how writers processed trauma, survival, and witness through literary form. This virtual program reflects on literature as both resistance and record.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
12:00 pm
Free
12:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss Brazil's Political Future
This panel examines Brazil’s political, social, and economic challenges as the country prepares for the 2026 elections amid polarization, violence, and shifting global pressures. Brazil stands at the precipice of a critical and challenging year. In October 2026, 79-year old Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will run for president for his fourth term as president after a tumultuous period in Brazilian history that included a presidential impeachment, the right-wing populist presidency in Jair Bolsonaro, and a coup attempt. After winning the 2022 elections by a narrow margin, Da Silva’s allies were widely turned out of office in the 2024 municipal elections. International political and trade tensions with the US have further complicated matters domestically. Crime and violence continue to affect the country, most notably with the recent murder of 120 at the hands of police on the north side of Rio de Janeiro.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Talk | Wildlife Photographer Discusses His Experiences in the Everglades
Enjoy an exciting look at what it’s like to photograph birds in the Everglades. During this session, nature photographer Matt Matkin will share why he first got into bird photography and the real-world challenges that come with a dedicated wildlife shoot. You will hear about his favorite moments from his recent trip to the Everglades and learn his personal approach to capturing great photos of birds in action. Matt will also walk you through the specific gear he used while out in the field. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, you will leave with new tips and plenty of inspiration for your next adventure!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Learn How a Historic Mansion Turned into a Museum
Join a museum educator for a brief gallery talk tracing how a Gilded Age mansion was transformed into a world-class art museum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Award-Winning Author Shares Her New Essay Collection, We're Alone
National Book Award Finalist Edwidge Danticat talks with literature professor Brent Hayes Edwards about We’re Alone, her recent book of essays that trace a loose arc from her childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, and include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin. The essays explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience, moving from the personal to the global and back again. We’re Alone is a book that asks us to think through some of the world’s intractable problems while deepening our understanding of one of the most significant novelists at work today. We’re Alone has garnered high critical praise and was a Finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle for Nonfiction, and named by NPR.org, Publishers Weekly, and Electric Literature Best Book of 2024.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Quiet Reading Meet Up
Bring a book or check one out of the library to read to yourself for one hour. After that, spend an hour socializing with those around you!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Architect & Urban Conservationist Explores the Indian Architecture Landscape (In Person AND Online!)
Architect and urban conservationist Brinda Somaya draws on her decades of experience to explore the idea that architecture is not just about buildings and aesthetics but also about people, politics and social responsibility. In conversation with architects Jeanne Gang and Billie Tsien and CEO of World Monuments Fund (WMF) Benedicte de Montlaur, Somaya will explore how new buildings can arise from historic settings, honoring the past while meeting the needs of the present and future. Together, they will reflect on the architect's role, underscoring how thoughtful design can bridge heritage conservation and community engagement. Shaped by Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Islamic, colonial, and modernist traditions, India's built environment reflects centuries of cultural exchange and transformation. Today, architects in South Asia work across an extraordinary range of contexts--from informal settlements to heritage sites and from major corporate headquarters to public buildings. The region's architects navigate stark social and economic divides, with projects spanning conservation, cutting-edge design and grassroots engagement.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Art Scholar Cat Dawson Shares Their New Book, Monumental
Professor and author Cat Dawson explores the shifting role of monuments in our culture, from those that have been recently toppled, to novel investigations of the form by a new generation of artists interested in how symbolic structures can be made and what stories they can tell. For centuries, monuments have telegraphed the values and origin myths of dominant culture in public space and on massive scale. They have signaled both who is part of a culture and who is not, often overlooking histories that complicate the stories they tell. Yet in the last 50 years in the United States, the role of monuments has changed significantly. Numerous historical monuments have been removed or toppled, bringing to the fore a long-repressed conversation about the relationship between the monumental landscape and national identity. In Monumental, Cat Dawson takes up the social, political, and art historical causes and ramifications of this important shift.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | National Book Award-Winner Susan Choi Speaks about Her Craft & Career
The acclaimed novelist, Susan Choi, will be in conversation about her writing. Susan Choiis the author of Trust Exercise, which received the National Book Award for fiction, as well as the novels The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, and My Education, and her latest, Flashlight, published last June. She is a recipient of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Brooklyn. Reception to follow.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Race, Power, and American Sculpture
The curatorial team discusses the exhibition’s examination of how sculpture has shaped and reflected ideas of race in the United States. Recently presented at a major American museum, the exhibition brought together 82 works created between the late 18th century and the present, spanning materials from bronze and marble to paper, hair, and found objects. The talk offers insight into the curatorial process and the historical narratives embedded in American sculpture.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Scholar Shares His New Nonfiction Book, Who's Allowed To Protest?
Enjoy a conversation with scholar, author, and academic Bruce Robbins to celebrate the release of his new book, Who's Allowed to Protest? Who's Allowed to Protest? is the essential guide for understanding why some political voices are amplified, others are silenced, and how the fight over “who’s too elite” to dissent will determine our democratic fates. Why do charges of “privilege” haunt every new protest wave? In this electrifying blend of short history and manifesto, Columbia University professor Bruce Robbins picks apart the insult that demonstrators are merely elite status-seekers—and shows why the same complaints surfaced against Vietnam-era marchers, Iraq War protesters, and, most recently, the Gaza encampments that shook campuses nationwide.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Feb 25
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | CNN Correspondent Shares Her New Book, My Russia
Hear a book talk by CNN's Jill Dougherty on My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin. Moderated by Elise Giuliano. My Russia reveals CNN’s Jill Dougherty’s transformative journey from a Cold War-era obsession with Russia to witnessing firsthand the rise of Vladimir Putin and the unraveling of a nation she grew to love. My Russia charts Russia’s evolution through the eyes of an American with rare insight into Russia, its people, and its leaders.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
4:15 pm
Free
4:15 pm
Free
Book Club | Talk about What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Discuss What We Can Know by Ian McEwan with likeminded bookworms! The novel is set almost a century in the future, in 2119, in a UK partially submerged by rising seas, and is centred on Tom Metcalfe, an academic at the fictional University of the South Downs,[3] who is investigating a lost poem, read aloud at a party in 2014.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | CNN Anchor Shares Her New Book, A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power
CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip will discuss her new book, A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power, which explores Jesse Jackson’s 1980s presidential campaigns and their lasting impact on Black political power.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Leading German Author Disccusses Her Book, Sanderling, & DIscusses It with Its Translator (+ Signing)
Enjoy a reading by Anne Weber from her book Sanderling (translated by Neil Blackadder), followed by a conversation between her and the book's translator Neil Blackadder, which will be moderated by the author and literary translator Tess Lewis. The conversation will focus on Anne Weber’s deeply personal reckoning with what it means to be German, how the past continues to manifest in the present, how this “Zeitreisetagebuch” (Diary of Time Travel) came to be, and finally, how the translation from German to English was facilitated by the author and translator. How do you live with a history you can’t escape? What did it mean to be German one hundred years ago? And what is it like today? These are the questions at the heart of Sanderling, a classic work of literary inquiry by Anne Weber, one of Germany’s leading contemporary authors. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and there will be a book signing following the program.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Trailblazing Designer Shares His New Book, Storyteller: Tales from a Fashion Insider (+ Signing)
Meet the designer who built a $100 million sportswear empire in under five years and turned his creative vision into a multi-decade, multi-category business. This fireside chat with internationally recognized fashion designer and entrepreneur Jeffrey Banks followed by a book signing celebrating his book, Storyteller: Tales from a Fashion Insider. Moderated by Bridget Foley, former Executive Editor of WWD. Banks pioneered the concept of "spectator sportswear" and scaled it to $100 million in less than five years. Banks understood early what many designers resist: that commercial success doesn't compromise creativity, it amplifies impact. What followed was a masterclass in brand architecture: licensing deals in Japan, private label development for Bloomingdale's, the first brand extension for Johnnie Walker, and product categories spanning menswear, womenswear, and home decor for HSN. Banks is a pioneering designer who helped redefine American fashion at a time when few in the industry looked like him. Rising to prominence in the 1970s, he was among the first and few Black designers to enter fashion's upper echelons, challenging barriers with creativity and conviction. His work opened doors for generations of designers who followed, showing that what can be imagined can be made real. In this session, Banks will share candid insights on scaling creative businesses, navigating licensing and brand extensions, and the strategic decisions that turned design talent into commercial success. His career offers a blueprint for building sustainable fashion enterprises across categories and decades.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Writer Ocean Vuong & Artist Laurie Anderson Discuss Buddhism & Creativity
Hear multimedia artist Laurie Anderson and writer Ocean Vuong in conversation on Buddhist practices for the creative process. Moderated by Dominique Townsend, Director of the Center for Buddhist Studies, Department of Religion. Introduced by Professor of the Arts and Dean Emerita Carol Becker. Books and albums are available for purchase at the event.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Prize-Winning Author Shares Her New Novel, Bad Asians
Lillian Li discusses her new novel, Bad Asians, in conversation with actor and producer Katharine Chin. From the acclaimed author of Number One Chinese Restaurant comes an affecting novel about an unforgettable group of friends trying to make their way in the world without losing themselves, or one another. Lillian Li is the author of Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Granta, and Travel + Leisure.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Feb 26
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Journalist Shares Her New Book, Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
Hear a conversation with journalist Julia Ioffe, author of Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy, in conversation with Nina Khrushcheva. Moderated by Elise Giuliano. In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe reveals what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak—and how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the sacrifices of its women.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 27
12:15 pm
Free
12:15 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Expert Insights: Seeing Desire in Medieval Art
Museum experts examine depictions of the human figure in medieval works, and the talk discusses relationships, identity, and expression in history, uncovering new ways to engage with these powerful works of art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 27
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Charlotte Moss Shares Her New Book, The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon: Paintings by Snowy Campbell (+ Signing)
Enjoy a conversation with Charlotte Moss to celebrate the new book, The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon: Paintings by Snowy Campbell, showcasing the timeless interiors of Bunny Mellon's famous residences alongside the complete collection of paintings by Snowy Campbell. Charlotte will be in conversation with Sir Peter Crane, followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 27
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion |
Designer & Author Jeffrey Banks Celebrates His New Book, Storyteller: Tales from a Fashion Insider
Enjoy an evening celebrating author Jeffrey Banks' more than five decades shaping American fashion. Jeffrey Banks, author of Storyteller: Tales from a Fashion Insider celebrates his more than five decades shaping American fashion. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Banks earned Coty Awards for men’s furs with Alixandre, as well as for his signature menswear collection and an “Earnie” for his signature boyswear. In addition to designing his signature menswear line, he has had a long-standing menswear license in Japan. Banks is a member of the Emeritus Board of Directors of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and was a senior Board Member of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Additionally, he has authored numerous fashion titles including: Tartan: Romancing the Plaid, Preppy: Cultivating Ivy Style, Perry Ellis: An American Original, Patricia Underwood: The Way You Wear Your Hat, and Norell: Master of American Fashion. Books will be available for purchase.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Feb 27
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Symposium | Understanding the Art and Legacy of Renowned Artist Iba Ndiaye
Explore the work of Senegalese artist Iba Ndiaye (1928–2008) with international scholars. Delve into his contributions to Modernism, the influences behind his practice, and the political and cultural forces that shaped his art.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Feb 28
11:00 am
Free
11:00 am
Free
Book Discussion | Biographer Shares Her New Book, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life (In Person AND Online!)
A new biography of the feminist pioneer, written by Ellen Carol DuBois, explores Stanton’s legacy. DuBois, in conversation with legal scholar Julie Suk, discusses the reformer whose words still provoke—and whose struggles helped shape contemporary feminism. In Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life, historian Ellen Carol DuBois presents a definitive portrait of one of the most influential figures in the American struggles for women’s suffrage and rights. From the 1840s until her death in 1902, Stanton fought for women’s emancipation, advocating on issues that went far beyond the vote. Drawing on archival research and Stanton’s writings, DuBois traces her advocacy for reproductive rights, marriage reform, and challenges to religious hierarchies, while also examining Stanton’s conflicts with Black reformers and her support of nativist ideas—highlighting the contradictions that continue to complicate her legacy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Mar 3
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Love, Desire, and Gender in Medieval Art
Discover how love, sex, and gender were represented in medieval art through a focused gallery talk. Experts guide small groups through select objects, sharing new insights, untold stories, and close-up perspectives on the works' craftsmanship, symbolism, and social context. Attendees can also ask questions and engage directly with the discussion.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Mar 5
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Writing War and Its Aftermath (Online!)
An in-depth conversation with an award-nominated novelist and memoirist whose work examines war, displacement, and the lasting consequences of conflict. Drawing from both fiction and nonfiction, the discussion explores how personal experience, history, and storytelling intersect to shape narratives of modern warfare and its aftermath.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Mar 6
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Death Cafe Discussion Group
An informal, group-directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. The purpose of Death Cafe is "to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives." This is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Mar 7
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Author Nicole Kelner Shares Her New Book, Quietest Places in New York City (+ Signing)
Enjoy a conversation with Nicole Kelner to celebrate her new book, Quietest Places in New York City: Finding Calm & Peace in Urban Chaos, an illustrated guide exploring the pockets of New York City to find quiet, stillness, and a connection to nature and the self. She will be in conversation with Abi Inman, followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Mar 10
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Journalist Shares Her New Book, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth (In Person AND Online!)
Journalist and author Daisy Hernandez explores one of the most contested questions in contemporary American life: who belongs. In her new book, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, Daisy Hernandez braids memoir, history, and cultural criticism to reveal how citizenship functions less as a guarantee than as a narrative we tell about ourselves as a nation. Drawing on her own family's stories--a mother from Colombia and a father who fled Castro's Cuba--Hernandez's narrative is both national and personal, and it challenges us to reframe our understanding of what it means to be an American.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Mar 10
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Historian Discusses His New Book, America's Founding Son (In Person AND Online!)
The historian and bass player for The Avett Brothers revisits the life of John Quincy Adams, arguably America's greatest ex-president. John Quincy Adams was born nine years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and he died as the United States was sliding irrevocably toward Civil War. In between he was a foreign ambassador, secretary of state, sitting president, and finally ex-president and sitting congressperson. In America's Founding Son, Bob Crawford--best known as the bassist for the Grammy-nominated band The Avett Brothers--traces Adams's unparalleled life and career. He helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which was evoked as recently as the day Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was arrested. He is also the only ex-president to serve in Congress, where he confronted slaveholders and challenged the nation to live up to its founding ideals. Crawford talks to presidential historian Alexis Coe about John Quincy Adams's unlikely second act that reshaped not just his legacy but the country's.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Mar 11
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Author Allison Pataki Shares Her New Novel, It Girl (+ Signing)
Enjoy a conversation with Allison Pataki to celebrate her new novel, It Girl, a sensational story of passion, drama, stardom, and the price of fame for America's sweetheart. Allison will be in conversation with Chloe Melas, followed by a signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Mar 13
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Discuss Your Favorite Romance Books in a Group
Calling all romance book lovers! If you love romance or want to get into it, come to this romance book club! The group will be discussing everyone's favorite romance books, current reads, and more!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Mar 14
10:15 am
Free
10:15 am
Free
Book Discussion | Irish-American Poetry Discussion Circle
Participate with fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. This month, celebrate St. Patrick's Day with poems from the tradition of Irish American poetry. Please note that contemporary poetry deals frankly with contemporary issues and all works discussed are artistic expressions selected for an adult audience.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Mar 17
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Experts Discuss the Economy of Philanthropy & Arts Patronage in American Culture
Experts explore the economy of philanthropy and patronage in American culture, and how they shape the performing arts and cultural institutions. They will refer to The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith's seminal text on economics and value, as well as the oratorio of the same name that the NY Phil is premiering that week by David Lang, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as The Marie-Josee Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic. Moderated by renowned ethnomusicologist, historian, and Juilliard faculty member Fredara Hadley, this discussion is scheduled to last one hour and will be followed by an audience Q&A. There are two ways to access this event: 1. General Admission, first-come first-served. Just show up! 2. Fast Track opening the Monday before the event at noon.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Mar 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Luddite Book Discussion on Enshittification by Cory Doctorow
This book club shighlights work on the topic of technology’s impact on our individual lives as well as society as a whole, followed by an open discussion to share recent experiences and observations. Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow (2025) The new dirty word that describes the pattern behind digital platforms progressively getting worse and worse for users. But we don’t need to curse our fate; there may still be things we can do about it.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Mar 19
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Join the Club!
Complimentary Tickets
to shows, concerts ... (CFT Deals!)
Performance | Multi-Award Winners Give Insights into Careers of Iconic Artists
Regular Price: $80CFT Member Price: $0.00
Classical Music | Large Chorus Performs Gospel and More at a Landmark Venue
Regular Price: $40CFT Member Price: $0.00
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