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!
133 free talks, lectures, discussions in New York City (NYC) Wed, 05/15/2024 - 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!
Discussion | Israel and the World after October 7th (online)
Yael Eckstein provides insights into navigating Israel's global position after Oct. 7, humanitarian efforts, and Jewish-Christian relations. Since October 7th, Israelis and Jews worldwide have questioned how the Jewish state will relate to the international community. Yael Eckstein, President and CEO of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, one of the world's leading religious charitable organizations, has a unique perspective on Jewish-Christian relations and Israel's role in the world. Yael, based in Israel, will be in discussion with AJU President Jeffrey Herbst about the lessons she has learned from helping many thousands of Jews move to Israel, providing humanitarian aid to victims of terror, and building inter-religious understanding.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Demian by Herman Hesse
Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a middle class home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt, a composite word meaning "world of illusion," so his entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth (see Plato's cave and dualism). Accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate and friend "Max Demian," he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Liu Shiming: Sculpture as Truth
A gallery talk led by former Art In America editor Richard Vine, entitled Liu Shiming: Sculpture as Truth. The richly illustrated talk will trace Liu Shiming’s remarkable personal journey, placing the idiosyncratic artist in the context of postwar sculpture both in China and abroad. Its major emphasis will be on distinguishing verisimilitude, with its susceptibility to visual rhetoric, from direct and honest observation. Q&A to follow.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers
Jason Barr, one of the world's top experts on the economics of skyscrapers, discusses his fascinating account of the ever-growing quest for super tall buildings across the globe. The world's skyscrapers have brought us awe and wonder, and yet they remain controversial--for their high costs, shadows, and overt grandiosity. But, decade by decade, they keep getting higher and higher. What is driving this global building spree of epic proportions? Barr explains all: why they appeal to cities and nations, how they get financed, why they succeed economically, and how they change a city's skyline and enable the world's greatest metropolises to thrive in the 21st century.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Shanghailanders: Backwards in Time with One Family
Julie Min's dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in time--beginning in 2040 and moving through our present and the recent past--exploring their secrets, their losses, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Little Seed: An Experimental Memoir
Wei Tchou's experimental memoir braids together the narrative of the author's relationship with her brother and family with a deeply personal field guide to ferns. The chapters move associatively, commenting on each other indirectly and drawing out questions of assimilation, race, class, gender, nature and the general problem of being and knowing. When the author's brother has a psychotic break, the rigid structure of the book itself breaks apart and the protagonist adventures to the cloud forest of Oaxaca in order to truly live: to know the world by experiencing it rather than reading about it or following the direction of others. Some persistent themes throughout the book: What does it mean to be Chinese? What is love and how best to love? What really is a fern?
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 15
7:00 pm
$5
7:00 pm
$5
Gallery Talk | Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut: Exhibition Tour
Co-curators behind the scenes of Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut, which explores for the first time in the United States the legacy of Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles. The four curators will walk through the exhibition's artworks, archival documents and films, opening up a new window on psychiatry and its connections to art, literature and French theory.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
12:00 pm
Free
12:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Somewhere to Roost: Exhibition Tour
A tour of the current exhibition led by Luce Assistant Curator Brooke Wyatt. \ Featuring paintings, textiles, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition explores the ways that artists evoke and construct ideas of “home.” Taken both literally and metaphorically, Somewhere to Roost represents spaces where artists live and work, as well as places remembered, imagined, or dreamed. The exhibition highlights experiences of immigration, incarceration, and housing insecurity, as well as visions of home that are playful, inventive, and unexpected.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Discussion | A Conversation with NYC's Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol (in-person and online)
Person Place Thing Host Randy Cohen in a wide-ranging conversation with Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Five Time Grammy Award Winner on the Intersection of Creative Arts and Human Health
Soprano Renee Fleming, five-time Grammy Award winner and World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health, joins Ashwin Vasan, MD, PhD, Health Commissioner of the City of New York, to discuss the compelling and growing body of research at the intersection of creative arts and human health. The event will also highlight Fleming's new anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, which features chapters from leading scientists, artists, creative arts therapists, educators, and healthcare providers who highlight the powerful impacts of this work. In addition to using music to better understand complex functioning of the brain, researchers have found music and art therapies to be effective tools in addressing effects of an ever-widening array of conditions: providing relief from chronic pain, enhancing speech recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury, improving mobility of individuals with Parkinson's disease, improving memory and quality of live for patients with Alzheimer's, and more. And the impact of the arts on developing brains of children shows effects reaching beyond improved test results and scholastic aptitude to creativity and success throughout life. Fleming, as a leading advocate for this work, has presented on Music and Mind in over 60 cities around the world. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | You Glow in the Dark: Wreckage of Greed
Bolivian writer Liliana Colanzi's short stories glimmer with an unearthly light and a nearly radioactive power. The seven stories of You Glow in the Dark unfold in a Latin America wrecked and poisoned by human greed, and yet Colanzi’s writing—at once sleek and dense, otherworldly and intensely specific—casts an eerily bright spell over the wreckage. Some stories seem to be set in a near future; all are superbly executed and yet hard to pin down; they often leave the reader wondering: was that realistic or fantastic? Colanzi draws power from Andean cyberpunk just as much as from classic horror writers, and this daring is matched by her energizing simultaneous use of multiplicity and fragmentation—the book's stylistic trademarks.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Discussion | How to Write About Africa: A Tribute to the Work of Binyavanga Wainaina (in-person and online)
A conversation that explores the influential legacy of Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina. Mona Eltahawy, Sean Jacobs and Anderson Tepper will come together to revisit Wainaina’s body of work, his impact on African literature and reflect on their own perspectives and writing practices, fostering a greater awareness of the power and responsibility that comes with storytelling. The conversation will be moderated by Uzodinma Iweala.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
From Adam Higginbotham comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that reads like a thriller.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Long Island by Colm Toibin (In Person AND Online!)
Twenty years after the events of Brooklyn, it is the spring of 1976 and the Irish expat Eilis Lacey is now married to Tony Fiorello with two teenage children and living on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, among Tony’s parents and his brothers and their wives and children. The huge extended family lives together, works together, eats and plays together. One day, an Irishman comes to the door and tells Eilis that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. Long Island is the story of what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news. Colm Toibin speaks with Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, who is currently a fellow at the The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers and publishes in 2024 her novel The Alternatives, a portrait of a family perched on our collective precipice.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Within Arm's Reach: Unexpected Pregnancy Jars Irish-American Family
Ann Napolitano discusses her novel which follows three generations of an Irish-American Catholic family who are jarred into crisis by an unexpected pregnancy. This lyrical first novel is told through six different points of view, including those of the unmarried, pregnant Gracie, a local advice columnist; and her grandmother, the matriarch, who is struggling with her commitments to both the living and the dead. Within Arm’s Reach is a poignant reminder of how interconnected our lives are with those we love, how much more we inherit than wills decree, and how the ghosts of our ancestors walk by our sides every day.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 16
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | The Lindau Gospels: Exhibition Tour (online)
A virtual docent-led exploration of a 1200-year-old book that forms a cornerstone of the renowned permanent collection of illuminated manuscripts at the museum. Known as the Lindau Gospels, it holds the honor of being manuscript number one in the collection. Through this discussion, examine its jeweled covers as well as a selection of the richly illuminated pages of the manuscript inside.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, May 17
12:30 pm
Free
12:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Puppy Brain: How Our Dogs Learn, Think, and Love
How do you raise a happy, healthy, and emotionally resilient dog? Full of actionable guidance, Puppy Brain will show you how to create a harmonious, fulfilling relationship with your pet, from Kerry Nichols, founder of Nicholberry Goldens.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, May 17
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Blue Maiden: Two Sisters vs the Devil
Author Anna Noyes presents a transportive and chilling debut novel of two sisters growing up on an isolated Northern European island in the shadow of their late mother and the Devil. It's 1825, four generations after Berggrund Island's women stood accused of witchcraft under the eye of their priest, now long dead. In his place is Pastor Silas, a widower with two wild young daughters, Beata and Ulrika. The sisters are outcasts: imaginative, oppositional, increasingly obsessed with the lore and legend of the island's dark past and their absent mother, whom their father refuses to speak of. As the girls come of age, and the strictures of the community shift but never wane, their rebellions twist and sharpen. Ever capable Ulrika shoulders the burden of keeping house, while Bea, alone with unsettling visions and impulses, hungers for companionship and attention. When an enigmatic outsider arrives at their door, his presence threatens their family bond and unearths - piece by piece - a buried history to shocking ends. All the while Berggrund's neighboring island The Blue Maiden beckons, the storied home of the Witches' Sabbath and Satan's realm, its misted shore veiling truths the sisters have spent their lives searching for. A Nordic Gothic laced with the horrors of life in a patriarchy both hostile to and reliant on its women, The Blue Maiden is a starkly beautiful depiction of lost lineage and resilience.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, May 17
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Talk | Fashionspeak Fridays: Statement Sleeves
Whether puffed, ruffled, split, or sheer, statement sleeves have been a ubiquitous fashion trend for the past decade. Colleen Hill, curator of costume and accessories at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, takes an insightful look at the current Statement Sleeves exhibition she has curated and the myriad of ways in which designers have reinterpreted and remixed sleeves through variations in material, shape, embellishment, and even functionality.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, May 17
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Byenveni: Artist in Conversation
A conversation with the exhibition's curator, Yvena Despagne, and featured exhibition artists. Despagne will engage four of the exhibition’s featured artists in a discussion that explores their artistic expressions, the cultural significance of the flag, and the concept of the “Haitian Dream”. The featured artists of this talk are Daveed Baptiste, Nic[o] Brierre Aziz, Tasha Dougé, and Natacha Thys whose artistic styles span from mixed media to photography and conceptual approaches. Exhibition Tour: 1:30 - 2:30 pm Curatorial Talk: 2:30 - 4 pm
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, May 18
1:30 pm
Free
1:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut: Exhibition Tour
Co-curators behind the scenes of Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut, which explores for the first time in the United States the legacy of Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles. The four curators will walk through the exhibition's artworks, archival documents and films, opening up a new window on psychiatry and its connections to art, literature and French theory.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, May 18
4:00 pm
Free
4:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Surviving the Survivor: A Brutally Honest Conversation about Life (& Death) with My Mom: A Holocaust Survivor (in-person and online)
Karmela Waldman is an eighty-something psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor. Her son, Joel Waldman, is a successful broadcast journalist. After a discontented Joel chooses to leave his network news job, he gets a crazy idea for the next step in his career: what if he and his elderly mother did a podcast together? Things get off to a bumpy start as the mother-son duo struggle to figure out the art of podcasting, but they master the format and watch as the show becomes a wildly popular true-crime hit. Along the way, the two discover things about each other they never knew. Joel is stunned to learn that Karmela survived World War II by hiding in a boys’ Catholic school. Karmela also sheds light on the emotional struggles she endured when Joel’s older brother died and how she’s struggling with the loss of her husband. Mother and son engage frankly and movingly with each other for the first time as adults, discussing child-rearing, aging, illness, death, and the secrets to enjoying life no matter how complicated it gets. Joel and Karmela will be in conversation about Joel’s book. Moderated by Jim Axelrod, CBS News Senior Correspondent.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, May 19
12:30 pm
Free
12:30 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut: Exhibition Tour (online)
Co-curators behind the scenes of Francesc Tosquelles: Avant-Garde Psychiatry and the Birth of Art Brut, which explores for the first time in the United States the legacy of Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles. The four curators will walk through the exhibition’s artworks, archival documents and films, opening up a new window on psychiatry and its connections to art, literature and French theory.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Talk | Israel's 7-Front War: Gaza Strip (online)
Examine the recent actions, regional ambitions, and strategic implications of Tehran's aggressive expansion and its threat to Israel. With Daniel Pipes, President of the Middle East Forum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Rescue Me: Actor Denis Leary on the 20th Anniversary of the Show
This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the debut of Rescue Me, the award-winning television series created by actor Denis Leary and writer Peter Tolan. Rescue Me tells the story of New York City firefighters through the dramatized story of Tommy Gavin, portrayed by Leary, and grapples with the issues and challenges faced by the FDNY in the aftermath of 9/11. In conversation with Museum Director Clifford Chanin, Leary and Tolan reflect on the series, its themes, and the impact it had on audiences around the world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection
Enjoy an evening of conversation with Robin Steinberg about public defense, justice and her new book. Steinberg is the Founder of The Bail Project and Founder and former Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Talk | The Base of Korean Cuisine: Fermentation & Rice
A talk featuring Chef Hooni Kim, renowned owner chef of Danji, the first Michelin-starred Korean restaurant globally, and Ryan Kim, CEO of Kim’C Market, renowned for its direct sourcing of natural Korean food from farmers and artisans. During this exclusive event, the speakers will delve into the intricacies of fermentation, elucidating the essence of Korean jang fermentation, its associated health benefits, and various fermentation techniques.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | The Mother of Modern Dance
Third generation Duncan dancer and Artistic Director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation & Company, Lori Belilove makes public for the first time Isadora Duncan's early manuscript, Exercizes for the Dance. Contrary to myth and popular misconception, Belilove says this document reveals that, Duncan had a coherent technique and guiding principles. Belilove expounds, with demonstration, Duncan's role as the "Mother of Modern Dance" in the context of this early formative handwritten document. An American pioneer of dance, Isadora Duncan was a self-styled revolutionary who condemned the rigidity of ballet and championed free dance coupled with her view of the ideals of ancient Greece: beauty, art, and philosophy. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Blue Ruin: Art World Reckoning
From Hari Kunzru, one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty and power, capital, art and those who devote their lives to creating it. Once, Jay was an artist. After graduating from art school in London, he was tipped for greatness, a promising career taking shape before him. That was not to happen. Now, undocumented in the United States, having survived Covid, he lives out of his car and barely makes a living as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. One day, as Jay attempts to make a delivery at a house surrounded by acres of woods, he is confronted by his destructive past: Alice, a former lover from his art school days, and the friend she left him for. Recognizing Jay’s dire circumstances, Alice invites him to stay on their property—where an erratic gallery owner and his girlfriend are isolating as well—setting in motion a reckoning that has been decades in the making. Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time, delivering an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, May 20
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Talk | Artist Talk: Process & Practice
For nearly two decades, interdisciplinary artist Shervone Neckles has undertaken an intimate exploration of her Grenadian-American family's history. Revisiting her family archives, collecting oral narratives, and traveling to her homeland has unearthed a lineage of knowledge production that serves as a continuous wellspring of inspiration for her studio practice. Through her artwork she weaves together primary source materials with mixed media techniques that includes printmaking, sculpture, textiles, and installation. Her work reconstructs narratives that illuminate her own interiority, exploring her relationship to selfhood, memory and home, as well as her family's migration narrative from Grenada to the United States. During her Workspace Residency at Dieu Donné in 2021, Neckles created Memory Works, handmade paper artworks that contain ingredients from Grenadian family recipes. Considering recipes as matrilineal heirlooms, Neckles’s artworks form an archive of family traditions narrating a story of global migration and family history. In conversation with her collaborator at Dieu Donné, Director of Artistic Projects Tatiana Ginsberg, she will discuss papermaking within the context of her multifaceted artistic practice and the process of creating Memory Works.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Poetry Discussion Circle: Asian/Pacific American Poetry
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. Each session focuses around a theme that celebrates the diversity and range of the poetic form and contemporary poetry culture. Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with a selection of poems that explore the experiences and histories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Readings are selected from Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and poets.org. 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, May 21
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Silver Nitrate: A Dark Thriller (online)
From author Silvia Moreno-Garcia comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film--and awakens one woman's hidden powers.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | My Third Half: Musings of a Bipolar Gemini
Richard Vogt's collection of short stories endeavor to entertain readers by confusing them. Or do these tales primarily confuse while entertaining? Or do they just confuse? You decide. This playful romp takes you places you thought you’d been spared from ever going to. Some of Mr. Vogt’s rambling, rumbling and resembling take on uncomfortable topics. But touching the third rail has never been this much fun. MY THIRD HALF does more than just disobey mathematics. It defies being slotted into any single genre. Bottom line, this compilation offers glimpses into the storyteller’s unobstructed imagination.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Resort Style: Spaces of Celebration
A sumptuous presentation of the extraordinary hotel casino design of AD100 interior designer Roger Thomas. Thomas has transformed Las Vegas casinos from low-ceilinged, claustrophobic mazes into luxury interiors adorned with antiques, fine fabrics, and custom fittings for Wynn Resorts. His maximalist interiors summon drama, joy, mystery, surprise, and more. This dazzling book's essays discuss these emotional design themes and the alluring configurations of Thomas's resort spaces. The profiled hotel and casino interiors (the properties of Wynn Las Vegas, Encore Las Vegas, Wynn Macau, Encore Macau, Wynn Palace Cotai, and Encore Boston Harbor) include grand lobbies, gaming rooms, restaurants and bars, and hotel guestrooms and suites. Outrageous accents abound, among them giant lampshades festooned with lacquer tassels and shimmering gold drapery that frames a garden view. For Thomas, inspiration for his resorts begins at home; he shares insights from designing his own houses in Venice, Italy, the San Francisco Bay area, and Las Vegas. This gold-embellished tome is for fans of fantasy and luxury design.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
Award-winning author Julie Satow looks south on Fifth Avenue and back through the 20th century to examine the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them. In three chic palaces of consumption – Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel – Satow writes, "men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled." Her new book, Satow focuses on three talented business women in different decades: Hortense Odlum, Dorothy Shaver, and Geraldine Stutz. Rich with personal drama and trade secrets, Satow's book portrays the world of the fashionable department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who ran the show.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Novices of Lerna: Lost Masterpiece of Argentine Literature
A forgotten masterpiece by an enigmatic master of Argentine fantastic literature. When unambitious scholar Ramón Beltra receives a mysterious invitation to a lucrative six-month fellowship at the University of Lerna in Switzerland, he reluctantly complies with the unusual qualifying paperwork requiring several pages of detailed measurements and photographs of his entire body. Beltra soon finds himself in the deserted university town of Lerna, together with twenty-three other “novices” subject to the same undisclosed project—all of them doppelgangers of Beltra himself. At first, Beltra is the only one to bristle at the school’s dizzying array of rules and regulations, but this all changes with the onset of an uncontrollable epidemic, and the fellows begin dying off one by one.... The Novices of Lerna introduces Bonomini’s fantastic tales to English readers for the first time. Shot through with wry humor and tender absurdity, these meditations on identity, surveillance, and isolation remain eerily prescient. With translator Jordan Landsman.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (online)
The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon swirled around the so-called sorry state of “feminized” American Jewish supplemental learning, and the schools were taken over by men within one generation of their creation. It is commonly assumed that the critiques were accurate and that the early Jewish Sunday school was too feminized, saccharine, and dependent on Christian paradigms. Author Laura Yares traces the development of these schools from their inception through the first decade of the twentieth century and shows that this was not the reality. In addition, Yares argues that the work of the women who shepherded Jewish education in the early Jewish Sunday school had ramifications far outside the classroom. Indeed, we cannot understand the nineteenth-century American Jewish experience, and how American Judaism sought to sustain itself in an overwhelmingly Protestant context, without looking closely at the development of these precursors to Hebrew School.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife
Bestselling author Sebastian Junger relates his own harrowing journey to answer his questions about death and dying in this deeply personal memoir. In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
7:30 pm
Free
7:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Music & Madness: Creating Jeff Beal's Score for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
A conversation with five-time Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal about the creation of his new score for the Weimar Cinema masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Beal will be joined by Reinhild Steingr?ver, Professor of German at the Eastman School of Music. They will discuss his approach to creating the Caligari score and share clips from Kino Lorber's upcoming 4k Blu-ray release that will feature his score.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
7:30 pm
Free
7:30 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 21
7:45 pm
Free
7:45 pm
Free
Book Discussion | 2 New Books: What's Eating Jackie Oh? / Relative Strangers
What’s Eating Jackie Oh? by Patricia Park A Korean American teen tries to balance her dream to become a chef with the cultural expectations of her family when she enters the competitive world of a TV cooking show. A hilarious and heartfelt YA novel from the award-winning author of Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim and Re Jane. Relative Strangers by A.H. Kim A timely spin on Sense and Sensibility, a twenty-first-century family drama featuring two half-Korean sisters, their ex-hippie mother, multiple messy love affairs and one explosive secret that could ruin everything.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | 2 New Books: Why Surrealism Matters / New Surrealism
As we mark the centennial of Surrealism, join authors Mark Polizzotti and Robert Zeller in conversation about historical Surrealism and its enduring legacy in contemporary culture and art. They will discuss their books, Why Surrealism Matters (Polizzotti) and New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting (Zeller), as well as why some aspects of Surrealism remain prevalent in the West, while other aspects no longer resonate.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | How to Burn a Rainbow: My Gay Marriage Didn't Make Me Whole, My Divorce Did
Sometimes, to find yourself, you must first burn everything down. Author Karl Dunn had it all; a husband, a home in the Los Angeles Hills, success. When his marriage ended suddenly, his perfect life and sense of self were shattered. His legal battles threatened everything he had, and he soon found himself working non-stop, leading to a downward spiral filled with anxious days and sleepless nights of rage and fear. Ironically, Karl's divorce ignited a journey of self-discovery-a quest for identity, love, and acceptance that took him from LA to a mid-divorce crash-landing in Berlin. This raw and unflinching memoir welcomes readers into the heart of Karl's transformative journey-burning the scripts written for him by both the gay and straight worlds, facing down his deepest fears, and forging his own path to self-love. How To Burn A Rainbow is a gripping narrative of resilience and courage that dares to ask the hard questions about love, equality, and the price of happiness.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Gallery Talk | Artists in Conversation
A conversation between Artist in Residence Martha Naranjo Sandoval and curator Kelly Long on the occassion of Naranjo Sandoval’s solo exhibition Flowering Wound.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Lecture | The Evolution of Mass Timber
Vancouver architect Michael Green is a pioneer of the Mass Timber movement in North America. Since his 2012 publication “The Case for Tall Wood Buildings” and inspiring 2013 TED Talk “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers,” Green has been a clarion voice in spreading the message of an all-wood architecture that is healthy, affordable, and sustainable. In his lecture, Michael will share the history and evolution of tall wood buildings from some of the earliest examples to his design thinking today, as outlined in “The Natural Building Blocks of Sustainable Architecture,” his 2023 TED Talk. Throughout his career, Green has advocated for multi-story buildings in the pursuit of creating a more sustainable future. His talk will focus on both proposed conceptual projects and built work, from his design for North America’s first modern tall wood structure – at almost 100 feet – completed in 2014, to his current designs for the world’s tallest timber tower – at 55 stories – in Milwaukee.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | After David: A Fearlessly Aging Woman
In unapologetic, sensuous prose, Catherine Texier's novel explores the languishing sex life of Eve, a writer in her early sixties who is the divorced mother of two grown daughters. Ignoring the concerns of friends and family, Eve satisfies her urges by having casual sex with the younger men she meets through online dating. But she can't fully shake the Catholic guilt over her relentless seductiveness, that is, until she begins a revitalizing affair with Jonah, a thirty-something jazz guitarist who gives her a new lease on life and tempts her to leave behind the complicated memories of a failed marriage. This erotic yet poignant literary work dares to venture into the aftermath of one woman's divorce and the passionate lopsided love affair that follows it.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (in-person and online)
Underground Empire, a real-life techno-thriller by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, reveals how the U.S. controls a global web of surveillance, in the form of networks of fiber optic cables and banking systems, giving it enormous economic power. Farrell and Newman show how these channels, weaponized after 9/11 but now used as a matter of course, have become realms of spying and coercion over foreign businesses and countries, allowing for U.S domination. Paul Krugman — Nobel laureate in economics, columnist for The New York Times, and distinguished professor -- speaks with the authors about their investigation and the geopolitical implications of the power they uncover.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Discussion | The Art of Movie Posters (in-person and online)
Movie poster artist Dawn Baillie in conversation with Chief Curator & Director of Content Angelina Lippert on the celebrated exhibition The Anatomy of a Movie Poster: The Work of Dawn Baillie. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear directly from the designer behind some of the world’s most iconic film posters and get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the magic of the movie poster making process.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War by Tom Steyer (In Person AND Online!)
In his new book, Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War, Tom Steyer argues that our only hope in the battle against climate change is to unite together to take action in a collective movement. Steyer has been on the forefront of the climate war for well over a decade, leveraging his investment expertise, business knowledge, and community-organizing skills to support sustainable climate solutions. Though the urgency to act is imperative—and time is running out—Steyer’s message is one of hope: that we will win this war precisely because there has never before been a moment more necessary or more rewarding to come together to secure a healthy future for ourselves and the planet. Tom Steyer explains how capitalism is an effective tool for scaling climate progress, offers his candid take on fossil fuel enablers, and explains why immediate action on the climate front will not only be our key to a healthy and viable future but also an investment in the future of our economy. Steyer discusses his new book with New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Last Time She Saw Him: A Psychological Thriller
A woman is left reeling when her former fiancé appears to take his own life, and she becomes desperate to prove it was actually murder—in the latest psychological thriller from bestselling author Kate White
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 22
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin
1980s Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone--from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples--could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city's spiraling misfortunes; and where--between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions--he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself. Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop, it is an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. It is structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung's. Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy's childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him--and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 23
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories
From the award-winning and bestselling French author Colombe Schneck, a woman’s personal journey through abortion, sex, friendship, love, and swimming.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 23
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration
The United States has by far the world’s largest population of incarcerated people. More than a million Americans are imprisoned; hundreds of thousands more are held in jails. This vast system has doled out punishment—particularly to people from marginalized groups—on an unfathomable scale. At the same time, it has manifestly failed to secure public safety, instead perpetuating inequalities and recidivism. Why does the United States see punishment as the main response to social harm, and what are the alternatives? This book brings together essays by scholars, practitioners, activists, and writers, including incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, to explore the harms of this punitive approach. The chapters address a range of issues, from policing to prosecution, and from how people are treated in prison to the consequences of a criminal conviction. Together, they consider a common theme: We cannot reduce our dependence on mass incarceration until we confront our impulse to punish in ways that are excessive, often wildly disproportionate to the harm caused. Essays trace how a maze of local, state, and federal agencies have contributed to mass incarceration and deterred attempts at reform. They shed light on how the excesses of America’s criminal legal system are entwined with poverty, racism, and the legacy of slavery. A wide-ranging and powerful look at the failures of the status quo, Excessive Punishment also considers how to reimagine the justice system to support restoration instead of retribution.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 23
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Memory Piece by Lisa Ko (In Person AND Online!)
Lisa Ko's Memory Piece tells the story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised. In the early 1980s, three teenagers are drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. They envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity. By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves. Join special guest hosts Jordan Lauf and Simon Close along with author Lisa Ko for a live conversation.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 28
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War
Jesse McCarthy's new book addresses the political and aesthetic evolution of African American literature and its authors during the Cold War, an era McCarthy calls “the Blue Period.” In the years after World War II, to be a black writer was to face a stark predicament. The contest between the Soviet Union and the United States was a global one—an ideological battle that dominated almost every aspect of the cultural agenda. On the one hand was the Soviet Union, espousing revolutionary communism that promised egalitarianism while being hostile to conceptions of personal freedom. On the other hand was the United States, a country steeped in racial prejudice and the policies of Jim Crow. Black writers of this time were equally alienated from the left and the right, Jesse McCarthy argues, and they channeled that alienation into remarkable experiments in literary form. Embracing racial affect and interiority, they forged an aesthetic resistance premised on fierce dissent from both US racial liberalism and Soviet communism. From the end of World War II to the rise of the Black Power movement in the 1960s, authors such as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Paule Marshall defined a distinctive moment in American literary culture that McCarthy terms the Blue Period. In McCarthy’s hands, this notion of the Blue Period provides a fresh critical framework that challenges long-held disciplinary and archival assumptions. Black writers in the early Cold War went underground, McCarthy argues, not to depoliticize or liberalize their work, but to make it more radical—keeping alive affective commitments for a future time.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 28
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Talk | Photographer Esteban Toro Discusses His Work
A talk with New York-based travel photographer, filmmaker and educator, and faculty member Esteban Toro. Toro's passion for capturing the essence of the world has taken him on captivating journeys across continents and cultures. As a Sony and BenQ Global Ambassador, Esteban’s keen eye for detail and commitment to visual storytelling have earned him recognition as one of the world’s foremost photographers.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 28
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 28
7:45 pm
Free
7:45 pm
Free
Discussion | October 7th and Its Aftermath: Where Do We Go from Here? (in-person and online)
The Hamas invasion of October 7, and the intense hostilities that followed, have left many of us traumatized—protective of Israel, but also more worried about its future and its meaning for Jewish life. These tragic events have highlighted the pain and paradoxes of Israel's story: a tough little nation that coaxed crops from the desert and built a first-world economy, somehow still struggling to justify and defend its existence; a miraculous story of Jewish self-determination and rebirth, somehow still fragile given its enemies, and the elusive challenge of reaching genuine peace; a country so widely admired for its accomplishments, contributions and resilience, and yet somehow still often isolated and shunned. How do we make sense of this moment? What does this all mean for the future of Israel, global Jewry and the relationship between them? Few people are better poised to sort through the complications, the challenges and the promises than Dr. Tal Becker, Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Dr. Becker not only leads Hartman Institute’s educational initiatives on Israel and the Jewish World but also serves as the legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has served as a senior member of the Israeli team in successive rounds of peace negotiations, was a lead drafter and negotiator of the Abraham Accords, a senior policy adviser to Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and an international law expert for the Israel Defense Forces. He is winner of the Rabin Peace Prize and the 2007 Guggenheim Prize for Best International Law Book for Terrorism and the State.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, May 28
8:00 pm
Free
8:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Behind the Headlines: Living in and Covering Israel at War (online)
Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein leads a panel of top English-language journalists in Israel who, since October 7, have been reporting on the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks, from the plight of the hostages and their families to the war in Gaza and the North as well as the threat of an escalating conflict with Iran. Ruth Marks Eglash (Jewish Insider), Uriel Heilman (JTA) and Jessica Steinberg (The Times of Israel) will share their experiences living in and covering Israel post-October 7.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
12:30 pm
Free
12:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Touchstones from the Joffrey Ballet's History (In Person AND Online)
Former Joffrey Ballet dancer Trinette Singleton presents touchstones from the Joffrey Ballet's history with works from the repertoire and the Joffrey Methodology. Beginning with the early 1960s following the Joffrey Ballet's split with Rebecca Harkness, Singleton discusses the events of that first year as the company began to establish itself. Singleton highlights various works that went into the repertoire during that period, along with the 1967 addition of The Green Table, an important milestone for the company. That year was also the year Joffrey produced his groundbreaking multimedia ballet, Astarte. It thrust both the company and Singleton into major news attention. Singleton explores the creation of this work, which has always been a topic of interest to many. The program presents an overview of the work of the Joffrey Ballet's co-founder Gerald Arpino, who was a prolific, often underrated choreographer. The Arpino Chicago Centennial Celebration was a recent testimony to his choreographic genius. Some of the pieces performed for the Centennial Celebration will be highlighted. A few years ago, a small group of dancers who had studied with Robert Joffrey decided it was time to create a record of his teaching method. Through the efforts of those dancers and the Arpino Foundation, a document titled the Joffrey Methodology has resulted. Singleton speaks about the process of documentation and shows a video of a few exercises from Joffrey's actual classes. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Tokyo Tokyo: Street Photography
In Tokyo Tokyo, street photography by Richard Koek captures the everyday magic of the Japanese capital. A unique book by photographer Richard Koek about one of the world’s largest cities, Tokyo. The visitor of this megapolis in Japan will see a lot of neon and plastic, but also traditional kimonos and cherry blossoms. Fashion and advertising are at least as important as etiquette and tidiness. In Tokyo Tokyo Koek reveals the true face of a city where tradition and innovation go hand in hand. Surely the stereotypes are a subject of his photographs, but Koek always gives them his own twist. His colorful images are raw, realistic and extremely striking. Koek knows how to capture the magic of everyday life by putting the ordinary on a pedestal. The beauty of the image and the story behind it always go hand in hand in his works. This is how he shows a different side of the city.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Discussion | O’Hara’s: Resilience on Tap
In the aftermath of 9/11, individuals came together in public spaces to grieve, find solace, and memorialize the attacks. These spaces fostered a sense of community that, in some cases, endure two decades later. O’Hara’s Restaurant and Pub is one of these sites. After suffering significant structural damage on 9/11, the bar re-opened seven months after the attacks, quickly becoming a space of mourning, healing, and a living tribute to first responders. To discuss the role of O’Hara’s after 9/11, the importance of community spaces, and how social ties are critical aspects of resilience, Museum Director Clifford Chanin is joined by Mike Keane, co-owner of O’Hara’s, retired firefighter Tim Brown, and Dr. David Abramson, Director of the Center for Public Health Disaster Science at NYU’s School of Global Public Health.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Role Play: Excesses of Brazil's Elite
Clara Drummond's Role Play is a fresh satire narrated by a wealthy young woman in Rio on the verge of a class-consciousness awakening. Vivian is a curator, not just at her gallery gig in Rio de Janeiro, but in every aspect of her life. Her apartment has designer armchairs. Her wallet is Comme des Garçons. Everything is selected and arranged, even her lovers and friends. In Vivian’s world, everything comes in excess, including her own caustic selfawareness. As she informs us, “I’m a misandrist and a misogynist,” but she is fond of gay men, “the one type of human you can properly get along with as equals.” Role Play examines the superabundances of Brazilian elites— their art, ethics, and monied ambivalence in the face of social inequality, machismo, and violence. As sharp and sparkling as broken champagne flutes, Clara Drummond’s prose is seductively frank and unflinching in its depiction of wealth’s power to warp the self.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
Legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century--including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath--finally gets her due in this intimate biography by Sara B. Franklin. When twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones began working as a secretary at Doubleday's Paris office in 1949, she spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects--until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing. During her more than fifty years as an editor at Knopf, Jones nurtured the careers of literary icons such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Tyler, and John Updike, and helped launched new genres and trends in literature. At the forefront of the cookbook revolution, she published the who's who of food writing: Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, and, most famously, Julia Child. Through her quiet and tenacious work behind the scenes, Jones helped turn these authors into household names, changing cultural mores and expectations along the way.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology
Hell on earth is real. The toxic fusion of big oil, Evangelical Christianity, and white supremacy has ignited a worldwide inferno, more phantasmagoric than anything William Blake could dream up and more cataclysmic than we can fathom. Escaping global warming hell, this revelatory book shows, requires a radical, mystical marriage of Christianity and biology that awakens a future beyond white male savagery. Timothy Morton argues that there is an unexpected yet profound relationship between religion and ecology that can guide a planet-scale response to the climate crisis. Spiritual and mystical feelings have a deep resonance with ecological thinking, and together they provide the resources environmentalism desperately needs in this time of climate emergency. Morton finds solutions in a radical revaluation of Christianity, furnishing ecological politics with a language of mercy and forgiveness that draws from Christian traditions without bringing along their baggage. They call for a global environmental movement that fuses ecology and mysticism and puts race and gender front and center. This nonviolent resistance can stage an all-out assault on the ultimate Satanic mill: the concept of master and slave, manifesting today in white supremacy, patriarchy, and environmental destruction. Passionate, erudite, and playful, Hell takes readers on a full-color journey into the contemporary underworld—and offers a surprising vision of salvation.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, May 29
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | The Connections Between Christian Anti-Judaism and the Hamas Attacks of October 7th (online)
A talk by Dr. Tilman Tarach, Lawyer; Author.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
11:00 am
Free
11:00 am
Free
Book Discussion | Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism: The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason's Siege (online)
A new wave of aspiring neo-Nazi terrorists has arisen—including the infamous Atomwaffen Division, and they have a bible: James Mason’s Siege, which praises terrorism, serial killers, and Charles Manson. Spencer Sunshine's book documents the origins of Siege and shows how Mason’s vision emerged during debates in the 1970s after the splintering of the American Nazi Party/NSWPP. The second part of the book unveils for the first time how four 1980s musicians and publishers—Boyd Rice, Michael Moynihan, Adam Parfrey, and Nikolas Schreck—discovered and promoted the terrorist ideologue.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Club | I Heard Her Call My Name : A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition is a 2024 memoir written by Lucy Sante. The memoir follows Sante's process of gender transition and coming out as a trans woman at age 67.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Splendid Settings: 100 Years of Mottahedeh Design
Wendy Kvalheim will be in conversation with Alex Papachristidis to launch Splendid Settings, celebrating a century of storied craftsmanship by Mottahedeh. With meticulous craft, attention to detail, and storied partners such as the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Historic Charleston Foundation, Mount Vernon, and Winterthur, Mottahedeh continues to create some of the most highly sought-after pieces on the market. For 30 years, Wendy Kvalheim has led this company into modern times. Splendid Settings: 100 Years of Mottahedeh Design is a testament to both Mottahedeh’s inimitable style and Kvalheim’s unique vision of the future. This is not your grandma’s china. In this lavishly illustrated celebration of the Mottahedeh centenary hundreds of Mottahedeh’s finest pieces are showcased; from classical dinner services in the great historical houses of America, to the placement of Mottahedeh pieces in modern New York lofts and contemporary Palm Beach, Florida dwellings, each page is an unexpected joy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Talk | Down the Bridle Path: Vestiges of Greenwich Village’s Equine Past
For centuries New Yorkers relied on horses to transport them uptown, downtown, crosstown, and beyond, often retracing the paths created by the Native Americans on horseback who had come before them. However, nearly all of the city’s equine culture has been forgotten, supplanted by a cacophony of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. Nevertheless, the horse in New York City’s past is not only present, but palpable in Greenwich Village, which still offers vestiges of this way of life through its former horsewalks, stables, mews and other associated objects. Architectural historian Gregory Dietrich takes you down the bridle path of this all but forgotten, yet tangible, legacy of Village horse culture.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Flights: Radicals on the Run
Told through the lives of the American Century's most talented and stubborn dissidents, Joel Whitney's book is the archetypal hero's journey of a group of progressives whose struggle for truth, and for freedom from persecution, sent them into exile, both literal and metaphorical. Wanted for a crime she did not commit, Professor Angela Davis went on the run in 1970, describing the struggle against panic in her nightly safehouse transfers: "Living as a fugitive means resisting hysteria, distinguishing between the creations of a frightened imagination and the real signs that the enemy is near." In her quest "to elude him, outsmart him," she recalled, "Thousands of my ancestors had waited, as I had...for nightfall to cover their steps..." Davis is just one of a rich array of refugees portrayed here by Joel Whitney, all forced to flee homes and/or friends because of their progressive stance. In these pages are compelling profiles of Seymour Hersh, Lorraine Hansberry, Graham Greene, Paul Robeson, Gabriel García Márquez, George & Mary Oppen, Frances Stonor Saunders, Malcolm X, Octavio Paz, Diego Rivera, Angela Davis, Leonard Peltier, N. Scott Momaday, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan guerrilla fighter Everado and his American wife, Jennifer Harbury, Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchú, deposed Honduran President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya and murdered Lenca environmentalist Berta Cáceres.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | The Last Murder at the End of the World: Atmospheric Whodunnit
Set on the foggy Greek isles, Stuart Turton's atmospheric whodunnit is wildly inventive, joyously confounding and an actual thrill to read.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, May 30
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | On the Couch: Writers Analyze Sigmund Freud
A host of contributors celebrate this new collection of colorful and candid essays and other pieces about Freud and his legacy today, featuring twenty-five leading writers. Filled with insights, provocation, and humor, On the Couch offers an original and nuanced portrait of Freud as a complex figure who, for all his flaws, forever changed how we see ourselves and the world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, May 31
7:00 pm
$5
7:00 pm
$5
Talk | Israel's 7-Front War: The West Bank (online)
Examine the recent actions, regional ambitions, and strategic implications of Tehran's aggressive expansion and its threat to Israel. With Gregg Roman, Director fo the Middle East Forum.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 3
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Lecture | Where Was God During the Holocaust? (online)
How do we find the divine in the face of unimaginable tragedy? Michael Berenbaum explores this profound question. Many people wonder where God was during the Holocaust, a question that has puzzled believers for decades. It gained significant attention in the latter half of the 20th century and continues to be a pressing issue for those grappling with the idea of God in a world filled with suffering and evil. In this course, they will explore the writings of Elie Wiesel, Emil Fackenheim, Richard L. Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, and others who have delved into this profound question. First of 4 sessions.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 3
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Discussion | Conversation with Broadway Writer
Theresa Rebeck, writer for stage, film, television and novels, with five plays produced on Broadway, joins the League of Professional Theatre Women on stage to discuss her career and work. Rebeck is among one of the most produced female playwrights on Broadway. Her Broadway credits include I Need That (starring Danny DeVito), Bernhardt/Hamlet, Dead Accounts, Seminar (starring Alan Rickman), and Mauritius (starring F. Murray Abraham). The League of Professional Theatre Women has been championing women and leading the gender parity conversation in professional theatre for 40 years. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 3
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Negotiating While Black: Be Who You Are to Get What You Want
Damali Peterman discusses her real-world, one-of-a-kind resource for anyone who has ever been underestimated, overlooked, or misunderstood at the negotiating table.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 3
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Poetry Discussion Circle: Pride Poems
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. Each session focuses around a theme that celebrates the diversity and range of the poetic form and contemporary poetry culture. Join during Pride Month to read poems reflecting a joyful variety of LGBTQ+ experiences and stories. Readings are selected from Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and poets.org. 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, Jun 4
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Real Americans: A Novel of National Identity (online)
Rachel Khong discusses her exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 4
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | For the Love of Renovating: Tips, Tricks & Inspiration for Creating Your Dream Home
The inspiring, game-changing book every fixer-upper needs, whether the project is budget remodeling or a full gut-renovation. The Brownstone Boys launch their debut, the inspiring, game-changing book every fixer-upper needs, whether the project is budget remodeling or a full gut-renovation.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 4
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Fire Exit: What We Owe One Another
Morgan Talty’s debut novel is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 4
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jun 4
8:30 pm
Free
8:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Sing Her Down: Gritty Thriller (online)
Ivy Pochoda discusses her gritty, razor-sharp thriller following two indelible women on a path to certain destruction.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 5
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
Award winning author Julie Satow launches her new book, a glittering portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 5
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Finding Dandini: The Rediscovery of a Painting and a 17th-Century Artist by Thomas Ruggio
Thomas Ruggio is a professor of fine art and art history at Iona University and the author of the new book Finding Dandini, published by Bordighera Press. This work recounts the rediscovery of a missing Baroque painting in a New Rochelle, NY church and casts new light on a Florentine painter from the 1600s who lived and worked during an incredible period in history. Thomas Ruggio will discuss his motivations for writing the book, and provide a closer look at the painter Cesare Dandini, as well as the required research and his writing process.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 5
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May
Carrie Courogen's riveting biography of comedian, director, actor and writer Elaine May, one of America’s greatest comic geniuses. May began her career as one-half of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, the duo that revolutionized the comedy sketch. After performing their Broadway smash An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Elaine set out on her own. She toiled unsuccessfully on Broadway for a while, but then headed to Hollywood where she became the director of A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the legendary Ishtar. She was hired as a script doctor on countless films like Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Tootsie, and The Birdcage. In 2019, she returned to Broadway where she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in The Waverly Gallery. Besides her considerable talent, May is well known for her reclusiveness. On one of the albums she made with Mike Nichols, her bio is this: “Miss May does not exist.” Until now.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 5
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Bohemian Soul: The Vanishing Interiors of New Orleans
Discover the resplendent interiors of old bohemian New Orleans, lovingly documented by Valorie Hart and Sara Essex Bradley in their new book, a valentine to a rapidly changing city.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 6
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Ninetails: Reimagining Asian Folklore
A fox spirit avenges a teen girl by seducing her abuser. A shapeshifting woman finds herself chased through the woods by fox hunters; meanwhile, an assassination plot called Operation Fox Hunt unfolds against the last Queen of Korea. Chinese migrants hoping to make new lives as “paper children” in America find their pasts—and their hopes for the future—embodied in the foxes that haunt the harbor in 1900s Angel Island. In the nine tales of Ninetails, acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao reimagines the fox spirit from Asian folklore—a shapeshifter, shaman, and seductress—as an icon of vengeance, solidarity and liberation. The characters of her stories are varied—from silicone sex dolls who come to life with new purpose, to women whose crushes manifest as stones—but they all reach for a common purpose: to find truth and belonging in a difficult world determined to consider them alien.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 6
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy
For Adam Nimoy, living with his father -- who became internationally famous playing Spock on Star Trek -- was like living with a stranger. After years of estrangement, the son received a letter from his dad. That marked a turning point in their lives, a moment that cleared the way for a new relationship between them.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 6
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Discussion | A Delicate Ritual: Artists in Conversation
With: artist Abigail Deville, choreographer Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, composer Samora Pinderhughes, and artists Bebe Miller and Vinson Fraley. This event was designed to bring together voices of artists, curators, scholars, writers, and more, into long-form roundtable discussions. The content of these conversations are intentionally wide-ranging and artist-driven.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Jun 8
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Six More Months of June: When High School Ends
Daisy Garrison's romantic debut about the exhilarating highs and messy lows that swirl together when high school comes to an end. Golden boy Caplan and bookish Mina have been unlikely soulmates since third grade. Bound by growing up in single-mother households on the same cul-de-sac in Two Docks, Michigan, their friendship exists miraculously outside their high school’s social order. Mina is class valedictorian, expected by her late father’s parents to attend his Ivy alma mater; Caplan is laughing off prom-king predictions and the fear that he’s peaking too soon. When Cap’s skateboard-toting, detention-dodging best friend confesses his feelings for Mina, she is whisked into a social life she never imagined, bumping shoulders with the likes of Caplan’s queen-bee girlfriend. Caplan is determined that things stay just as they’ve always been, while Mina faces the perils and privileges of opening her heart just in time to say goodbye. As the sun sets on senior year, everything glows. What will Cap and Mina discover in the last-chance light?
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 10
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Past Present Future: Feel-Good Romance
Rachel Lynn Solomon discusses her feel-good romance from both sides of the tango, a hilarious love story.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 10
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Sisters K: At Father's Deathbed
After years of estrangement, Minah, Sarah, and Esther have been forced together again. Called to their father's deathbed, the sisters must confront a man little changed by the fact of his mortality. Vicious and pathetic in equal measure, Eugene Kim wants one thing: to see which of his children will abject themselves for his favor-- and more importantly, his fortune. From their childhood in California to the depths of a mid-Atlantic winter, the solitary sisters Kim must face a brutal past colliding with their present. Grasping at their broken bonds of sisterhood, they will do what is necessary to escape the tragedy of their circumstances--whatever the cost. With author Maureen Sun.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 11
5:00 pm
$5
5:00 pm
$5
Book Discussion | City Science: Performance Follows Form
Ramon Gras will be in conversation with Serena McIntosh and Gregory Haley to celebrate the inaugural book from Aretian Urban Analytics and Design. They will discuss the Aretian team's city science methodology for evaluating the relationship between city form and urban performance, followed by a signing. The Aretian team, a spin off company from the Harvard Innovation Lab, has developed a city science methodology to evaluate the relationship between city form and urban performance. This book illuminates the relationship between a city’s spatial design and quality of life it affords for the general population. By measuring innovation economies to design Innovation Districts, social networks and patterns to help form organization patterns, and city topology, morphology, entropy and scale to create 15 Minute Cities are some of the frameworks presented in this volume.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 11
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice
Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman present a modern argument, grounded in philosophy and cultural criticism, about childbearing ambivalence and how to overcome it. Becoming a parent, once the expected outcome of adulthood, is increasingly viewed as a potential threat to the most basic goals and aspirations of modern life. We seek self-fulfillment; we want to liberate women to find meaning and self-worth outside the home; and we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change. Weighing the pros and cons of having children, Millennials and Zoomers are finding it increasingly difficult to judge in its favor. With lucid argument and passionate prose, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman offer the guidance necessary to move beyond uncertainty. The decision whether or not to have children, they argue, is not just a women’s issue but a basic human one. And at a time when climate change worries threaten the very legitimacy of human reproduction, Berg and Wiseman conclude that neither our personal nor collective failures ought to prevent us from embracing the fundamental goodness of human life—not only in the present but, in choosing to have children, in the future.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 11
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Curvy Girl Summer: Perils of Online Dating
Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Survival of the Thickest in Danielle Allen’s smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 11
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Future Was Color: Decadence in Postwar Hollywood
Patrick Nathan's dazzling novel about the inextricable link between the personal and the political set against the decadence of Hollywood and postwar Los Angeles As a Hungarian immigrant working as a studio hack writing monster movies in 1950s Hollywood, George Curtis must navigate the McCarthy-era studio system filled with possible communists and spies, the life of closeted men along Sunset Boulevard, and the inability of the era to cleave love from persecution and guilt. But when Madeline, a famous actress, offers George a writing residency at her estate in Malibu to work on the political writing he cares most deeply about, his world is blown open. Soon Madeline is carrying George like an ornament into a class of postwar L.A. society ordinarily hidden from men like him.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 11
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jun 11
8:30 pm
Free
8:30 pm
Free
Discussion | Hidden Labor in the Art and Craft of Papermaking (online)
In this talk, artists Aimee Lee and Velma Bolyard will discuss their creative work in and with handmade paper and the traditions they draw on, based on their recent essays in Papermaker’s Tears: Essays on the Art and Craft of Papermaking, Volume 2. In conversation with the series editor Tatiana Ginsberg, Dieu Donné Director of Artistic Projects, Aimee and Velma will discuss their research and personal experiences of keeping traditions alive through use. Aimee Lee writes about toolmakers Ronald MacDonald and Howard Clark, whose handmade tools have allowed generations of papermakers to beat pulp and form sheets. Velma Bolyard’s essay traces her personal journey of discovering shifu, woven paper cloth, and teaching it to others. Both artists make, spin, dye, and weave paper into dimensional forms and books, and draw upon traditional and contemporary practices.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 12
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Poetry Discussion: Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems on Time and Eternity
A discussion of poems from the "Time and Eternity" section of The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, published by The Modern Library.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 12
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story
Memoirist Leslie Jamison and actor-playwright Zoe Kazan in a conversation on parenting and performance--on what it means to make art, a family, a life: the abiding acts of self-transformation that are explored in Splinters, Jamison's meditation on motherhood, divorce, and love that is haunted by loss.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 12
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Discussion | Eco-Poiesis Beyond Empire
Curator and writer Omar Berrada and scholar Sarah Cervenak to present on their intersectional explorations of ecology, migration, gender, race, and coloniality. Cervenak will draw on excerpts from her two recent monographs, which attend to how Black women artists have taken up questions of wandering and gathering as ecological desire in their visual practices. This will be followed by Berrada’s reading of a suite of poems that offer up landscape and exilic distance to grapple with the politics of translation and the phenomenology of imperialism. Together, these presentations center the force of the poetic imagination in figuring alternative environmental possibilities.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 12
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The World Got Away by Mikel Rouse
This evening's event celebrates Mikel Rouse with a discussion about his new memoir, The World Got Away, and a listening party of his new album Language Barrier. The memoir channels Rouse’s high energy personality into an exuberant account of the precarity and pleasures of artistic creation. Raconteur and starving artist, Rouse emerged from the legendary art world of 1980s New York to build a forty-year career defined by stage and musical successes, inexhaustible creativity, and a support network of famous faces, loyal allies, and high art hustlers. The World Got Away guides readers through a working artists’ hardscrabble life while illuminating the unromantic truth that a project’s reception may depend on a talented cast and crew but can depend on reliable air conditioning. Brent Reidy, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries at NYPL, will moderate a conversation with Rouse about the book, and his life and work. They will be joined by Andrew Rose Gregory and Evan Gregory of The Gregory Brothers. Following the event, there will be a book signing. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 13
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Cuckoo: Evil in the Desert
Gretchen Felker-Martin presents a vicious new novel about a group of teens who must stay true to themselves while in a conversion camp from hell. Something evil is buried deep in the desert. It wants your body. It wears your skin. In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived—but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person. Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it's too late. The fate of the world depends on it.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 13
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
In this novel, an ordinary housewife becomes an unlikely spy—and her dark secrets will test even the most unbreakable ties. Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth. A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fujiwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them. Spanning years of pain and triumph, told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake. At this event, Vanessa Chan will discuss her book and more with fellow writer Qian Julie Wang.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 13
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | 2 New Books: Shadow Men / Hall of Mirrors
Hall of Mirrors When a popular mystery novelist dies suspiciously, his writing partner must untangle the author's connection to a serial killer in award-winning John Copenhaver's new novel set in 1950s McCarthy-era Washington, DC. Shadow Men: The Tangled Story of Murder, Media, and Privilege That Scandalized Jazz Age America From Edgar Award finalist James Polchin comes a thrilling examination of the murder that captivated Jazz Age America, with echoes of the decadence and violence of The Great Gatsby.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 13
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Blood in the Cut: Miami's Underside
Sharp as a butcher knife gleaming in the Miami sun, Alejandro Nodarse's Blood in the Cut opens onto a deeply personal vision of the streets and swamps of Miami, where the roots are crooked but strong as mangroves. Iggy Guerra is out of prison, but his homecoming is anything but smooth. His beloved mother is gone, his grief-stricken father Armando is deep in debt, and they are about to lose the butcher shop that has been in their family for generations. Iggy must earn his father’s lost trust in order to save La Carnicería Guerra from the threats imposed by a new rival business, a vigilante activist, and big-game hunter Orin, who has dragged Armando into his dangerous money-making schemes deep in the Everglades, where more than secrets are buried. Iggy will wrestle with the beauty and the danger of the place he calls home as he tries to save his family—without losing himself forever.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jun 14
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Club | Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat
Written by one of the greatest Iranian writers of the twentieth century, Blind Owl tells a two-part story of an isolated narrator with a fragile relationship with time and reality. In first person, the narrator offers a string of hazy, dreamlike recollections fueled by opium and alcohol. He spends time painting the exact same scene on the covers of pen cases: an old man wearing a cape and turban sitting under a cypress tree, separated by a small stream from a beautiful woman in black who offers him a water lily. In a one-page transition, the reader finds the narrator covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrest him. In part two, readers glimpse the grim realities that unlock the mysteries of the first part. In a new translation that reflects Hedayat’s conversational, confessional tone, Blind Owl joins the ranks of classics by Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky that explore the dark recesses of the human psyche.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jun 14
7:00 pm
$5
7:00 pm
$5
Forum | Death Cafe: A Discusson on Death
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, Jun 15
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Sex Goblin: Violence and the Erotic
Lauren Cook's book is a weird, wild ride across non-narrative vignettes and dryly funny aphorisms exploring the shared intensity of violence and the erotic.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, Jun 16
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Discussion | Klara's Truth: Dead Father, Estranged Mother
In Susan Weissbach Friedman's novel, Klara is forty-nine, single, and a professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine; a contained person living a contained life. Then she receives a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, informing her that her father, who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money, but she does want answers about her father. In Poland, Klara connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-war Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 17
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | One of Our Kind: The Secret in Utopia
The grass isn't always greener, and neighbors aren't always what they seem in Nicola Yoon's spectacular debut. Get Out meets The Stepford Wives in this terrifying and thought-provoking look at what it means to be truly free in America as a woman uncovers a secret about her new home in a utopian community
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 17
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Poetry Discussion Circle: Pride Poems
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. Each session focuses around a theme that celebrates the diversity and range of the poetic form and contemporary poetry culture. Celebrate Pride Month and read poems reflecting a joyful variety of LGBTQ+ experiences and stories. Readings are selected from Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and poets.org. 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, Jun 18
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Akmaral: Historical Drama
Like all women of the Sauromatae, Akmaral is bound for battle from birth, training as a girl in horsemanship, archery, spear and blade. Her prowess ignites the jealousy of Erzhan, a gifted warrior who hates her as much as he desires her. When Scythian renegades attack, the two must unite to defeat them. Among their captives is Timor, the rebels’ enigmatic leader who refuses to be broken, even as he is enslaved. He fascinates Akmaral. But as attraction grows to passion, she is blinded to the dangerous alliance forming between the men who bristle against the clan’s matriarchal rule. Faced with brutal betrayal, Akmaral must find the strength to defend her people and fulfill her destiny. With author Judith Lindbergh.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jun 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jun 18
8:30 pm
Free
8:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive: Filmmaker Uses Demonic Camera
From Bram Stoker Award‑nominated author Craig DiLouie comes a darkly humorous horror novel that sees a famous 80s slasher director set out to shoot the most terrifying horror movie ever made using an occult camera that might be (and probably is) demonic.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 19
3:00 pm
Free
3:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War
Scholar James Shapiro and playwright Ayad Akhtar in a conversation on theater and democracy, art and citizenship—an interrogation of the American cultural and political landscape then and now as presented in The Playbook, Shapiro’s new history of the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 19
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Club | The Nutmeg Trail: Recipes and Stories Along the Ancient Spice Routes by Eleanor Ford
From humankind’s earliest travels, people have followed and sought out the spice routes. These maritime trading trails acted as the central nervous system of the world, enabling the flow of goods and ideas. The Nutmeg Trail is a culinary exploration of spice, showcasing how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world’s cuisine. Eleanor Ford presents a unique and enlightening guide to cooking with spice as she follows the trails of ancient maritime trade through Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, and the Emirates. Eleanor examines how spices can be used, combined and layered—how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness or earthiness to create something one-of-a-kind. Chapters and recipes are divided by spice—by the fire and thunder of ginger and peppercorns, floral petals & bark, chillies, lime & lemongrass, earthy cumin & coriander, plus complex spice blends. Combining historical research with a travel writer's eye and a cook's nose for a memorable recipe, The Nutmeg Trail is a cookbook interwoven with stories that explore how spices from across the Indian Ocean, the original cradle of spice, have, over time, been adopted into cuisines around the world.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 20
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Times Square Remade by Lynne B. Sagalyn
Scholar and author Lynne B. Sagalyn will discuss her book Times Square Remade with journalist Charles Bagli. What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the place has maintained a unique hold on our collective imagination? In this book, which comes twenty years after her widely acclaimed Times Square Roulette, Lynne B. Sagalyn masterfully tells the story of profound urban change over decades in the symbolic space that is New York City's Times Square. Drawing on the history, sociology, and political economy of the place, Times Square Remade examines how the public-private transformation of 42nd Street at Times Square impacted the entertainment district and adjacent neighborhoods, particularly Hell's Kitchen. Sagalyn chronicles the earliest halcyon days of 42nd Street and Times Square as the nexus of speculation and competitive theater building as well as its darkest days as vice central, and on to the years of aggressive government intervention to cleanse West 42nd Street of pornography and crime. Thematically, the author analyzes the three main forces that have shaped and reshaped Times Square—theater, real estate, and pornography—and explains the politics and economics of what got built and what has been restored or preserved.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 20
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Same As It Ever Was: Long Marriage Faces Challenges
Claire Lombardo discusses her brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 20
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Club | Graphic Novel Book Club: The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 24
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Talk | Stargazing in the Park
A walk along the park and a chance to take a closer look at the stars. Peer through high-powered telescopes provided by the knowledgeable members of the Amateur Astronomers Association to see rare celestial sights. No experience is necessary and telescopes will be provided between sunset and park closure.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jun 25
8:30 pm
Free
8:30 pm
Free
Discussion | A Discussion About Renowned Modern Dance Choreographer Eleo Pomare
Dance educator and former member of the Eleo Pomare Dance Company, Dyane Harvey Salaam, along with company members Dr. Carl Paris, PhD and Robin Becker, will venture into the mind and soul of master creative Eleo Pomare—the man, the artist, and the maker of artists. Born in Colombia, Pomare was a dancer and choreographer who trained with renowned choreographers, including Jose Limon, and established the Eleo Pomare Dance Company in 1958. Pomare’s productions were often influenced by socio-political themes of the time and portrayed the Black experience incorporating elements of ballet, jazz and modern dance. Using video and archival photos, enhanced by fond memories of Eleo Pomare Dance Company members, this lecture offers intimate knowledge of the vastness of Pomare’s creativity. Registration required.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 26
1:00 pm
Free
1:00 pm
Free
Book Club | The Promise by Silvina Ocampo
A woman relives the people and places of her life while stranded in the middle of the ocean... The premise of Argentinian writer Ocampo’s posthumously published novella, which she worked on for the final 25 years of her life, is a grand metaphor for the authorial condition. Completed in the late 1980s, at a time when Ocampo was grappling with the effects of Alzheimer’s, the book can be read as a treatise on the dissolution of selfhood in the face of the disease. However, its tactile insistence on the recurrence of memory, its strangeness, and its febrile reality are themes that mark the entirety of Ocampo’s oeuvre and articulate something more enduring even than death.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 26
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Amy Unbound: A Transformative Odyssey
Amy Feldman is at the epicenter of a storm as she confronts the indifference of her husband, Josh, whose personal demons and career obsession threaten to shatter their marriage. Fueled by her determination to liberate herself from the ghosts of the past and an unfulfilling union, Amy seizes the momentous occasion of the inauguration of President Obama as the catalyst for her bold journey. Bidding farewell to her position at a prestigious St. Louis law firm, Amy redirects her passion toward social justice, igniting her transformative odyssey. With author Martin Sneider.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jun 26
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Club | The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
The Custom of the Country is a 1913 tragicomedy of manners novel by the American author Edith Wharton. It tells the story of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who attempts to ascend in New York City society.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 27
4:30 pm
Free
4:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Starring Joan Crawford: The Films, the Fantasy, and the Modern Relevance of a Silver Screen Icon
Samuel Garza Bernstein's rollicking exploration of the powerful women this iconic performer vividly brought to life in her films--and the lasting, ever-evolving impact she has had on popular culture. Having carved out a revolutionary path through the entertainment industry while relying on men--whether her studio bosses or her many husbands--as little as possible, she created a gallery of strong, assertive women who outsmarted men and refused to conform to gender expectations. In movies like Mildred Pierce, The Damned Don't Cry, Johnny Guitar, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, among many others, she played to win, becoming a lodestar for LGBT audiences, a model of feminist self-determination for women, and an unforgettable icon for everyone.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 27
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Discussion | The Land Is Holy: Lyrical Essays
Flora and fauna populate the lyrical essays in noam keim's book, where natural life is used to glean respite, healing, and stubborn lessons on survival.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jun 27
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Book Club | Poetry Discussion Circle: Disability Poetics
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. Each session focuses around a theme that celebrates the diversity and range of the poetic form and contemporary poetry culture. For Disability Pride Month we will explore poetry that celebrates the cultures, communities and unique experiences of people with disabilities living at the intersection of many different identities. Readings are selected from Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and poets.org. 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, Jul 9
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Forum | Death Cafe: A Discusson on Death
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, Jul 13
3:30 pm
Free
3:30 pm
Free
Book Discussion | Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York by Terry Willians
Aboveground, Manhattan’s Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people have taken shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel residents’ world, seeking to understand life on the margins and out of sight. He visited the tunnels between West Seventy-Second and West Ninety-Sixth Streets hundreds of times from 1991 to 1996, when authorities cleared them out to make way for Amtrak passenger service, and again between 2000 and 2020. Life Underground explores this society below the surface and the varieties of experience among unhoused people. Bringing together anecdotal material, field observations, photographs, transcribed conversations with residents, and excerpts from personal journals, Williams provides a vivid ethnographic portrait of individual people, day-to-day activities, and the social world of the underground and their engagement with the world above, which they call “topside.” He shows how marginalized people strive to make a place for themselves amid neglect and isolation as they struggle for dignity. Featuring Williams’s distinctive ethnographic eye and deep empathy for those on the margins, Life Underground shines a unique light on a vanished subterranean community. At this event, sociologist Terry Williams will discuss his new book and more with economist Natalia Filippova Williams.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jul 17
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Club | Graphic Novel Book Club: Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the modern masters of crime noir, bring us the last thing anyone expected from them - a good guy - in a new series of original graphic novels, with three books releasing over the next year, each a full-length story that stands on its own. Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his student radical days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears... his own past.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jul 22
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Book Club | Poetry Discussion Circle: Disability Poetics
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts in unpacking the layered meanings of poetry through an informal group discussion. Each session focuses around a theme that celebrates the diversity and range of the poetic form and contemporary poetry culture. For Disability Pride Month we will explore poetry that celebrates the cultures, communities and unique experiences of people with disabilities living at the intersection of many different identities. Readings are selected from Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and poets.org. 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
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 23
2:30 pm
Free
2:30 pm
Free
Complimentary Tickets
to shows, concerts ... (CFT Deals!)
Classical Music | Vocal Masterpiece by Mozart and More at a Major Venue
Regular Price: $60CFT Member Price: $0.00
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