2012 Programs
2012 Programs
Building a Movement to Close the Prison & End All Unjust U.S. Detentions
Faisal Hashmi, Ramzi Kassem, Leili Kashani, Pardiss Kebriaei, Silky Shah & Laura Whitehorn
January 11, 2012 marks the shameful tenth anniversary of Guantánamo's opening. Join us in advance of this anniversary and participate in a critical town hall discussion with a range of activists...
2nd Annual "Revisiting the Revolutionary Martin Luther King"
You Got to Move is a documentary by Lucie Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver that follows people from communities in the Southern United States in their various processes of becoming involved in social change...
A Monthly Update & Discussion
Rick Wolff
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad....
Reflections & Rising Movement
Saulo Colon, Harmony Goldberg, Lenina Nadal, Michelle O'Brien & Lee Schere
The New York Study Group (NYSG) was a network of activists and organizers, mostly people of color, based in diverse communities and organizations in New York City. NYSG provided a space for reflection and...
Part 1: Blackberry Curve
Marietta Hedges, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon
"We Live in Financial Times" is a play by Julia Lee Barclay and directed by Rik Walter; featuring Marietta Hedges*, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon*
A darkly funny...
Part 1: Blackberry Curve
Marietta Hedges, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon
"We Live in Financial Times" is a play by Julia Lee Barclay and directed by Rik Walter; featuring Marietta Hedges*, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon*
A darkly funny...
Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century
Dr. Serene Jones, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rev. Stephen H. Phelps, Prof. James Vrettos, Dr. Cornel West, Richard D. Wolff,
This special evening of thoughtful conversation and discussion will be held in the Nave of Riverside Church on Sunday, January 22nd starting at 6:00 pm. The event is free and will be live streamed on the...
Spain 1936-1939:
Michael Lardner
In July of 1936 Generalissimo Francisco Franco led a military coup against the Spanish Republic and the reformist Popular Front government. With the Army fully behind him Franco's fascist coalition expected...
Writer Gordon Gilbert with A Large Cast of Characters
This production addresses issues of the elderly in our society in the context of an entertaining story.
The Characters and Readers (in order of appearance)
Our narrator:...
A Conversation Between the Brecht Forum Community and the Board of Directors
Over the past several weeks many long time Brecht Forum subscribers and supporters have begun to take an increasingly active interest in how the Brecht Forum is run and in what the role of the board of...
Tectonic Shifts
Manolia Charlotin, Lisa Davis, Etant Dupain, Melinda Miles, Pablo Morales, Mark Schuller & Gina Ulysse
Haiti Since the Earthquake: ‘Tectonic Shifts’ Book Launch & Panel Discussion Featuring contributors Manolia Charlotin, Melinda Miles, Lisa Davis and Etant Dupain, together with editors Mark Schuller and...
Suzanne Adely, Maurizio Atzeni & Frances Fox Piven. Moderated by Manny Ness
Panelists will discuss the dramatic growth of precarious labor on a comparative international basis and the decline of traditional labor unions and rise of new social movements. The discussion will examine...
Faith, Revolution and Movement Building
In this lively interactive dialogue, writers Kazembe Balagun and Anika Lani Haynes will discuss the specific ways their faith, visionary organizing and movement building have been contradictory and yet...
Communes and Utopia in Northern California
Iain Boal and others
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a large portion of the population had become disenchanted with the American way of life that they did not feel they belonged to. While some openly revolted in the streets...
African American Spirituality at the Crossroads of Christianity and Voudun
Anika Lani Haynes (Moderated by Kazembe Balagun)
In this lively interactive dialogue, writers Kazembe Balagun and Anika Lani Haynes will discuss the specific ways their faith, visionary organizing and movement building have been contradictory and yet...
A Talk with Marian Kramer(Moderated by David Harvey)
Mass unemployment. School closures. Rampant misogyny. Police shootings. What does a revolutionary struggle look like today? Marian Kramer comes to the Brecht Forum to talk...
An Evening with William Loren Katz
William Loren Katz is the noted author of over 40 books. He is a truth-seeker. Dedicated to researching America’s celebrated, but gap-filled history, he brings the deliberately lost, misconstrued and...
The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan
A discussion with author Eric Laursen
The People's Pension is both groundbreaking history and an indispensable guide for anyone concerned about one of the biggest issues in the upcoming election. With 95 percent of Americans participating...
The State of Play in the “Designing Socialism” Discussion
David Laibman
Believe it or not, the possibilities are just starting to emerge. The insufficient socialisms of the past (and present) have left us rich legacies. New information technologies, grass roots activism,...
South Asians in America Today
Vijay Prashad
Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center, misdirected assaults on Sikhs and other South Asians flared on streets across the nation, serving as harbingers of a more suspicious, less discerning,...
A Report Back from Tunisia
This Tuesday we will host a reportback from some comrades who spent some weeks in April traveling around Tunisia, meeting with militants, rebels, anarchists, Stalinists, council communists, unionists,...
Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher
Rainbow of Desire, an Image Theater technique, is a technique similar to Cop-in-the-Head. Where Cop uses games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized forms of oppression, Rainbow of Desire...
Come watch a screening of Guy Debord's classic film based on his 1967 book of the same title--the Situationist International (SI) text that informed and motivated the French Revolution of May/June 1968....
Poetry & Drawings by Heather Spears
There will be a reading, "Poets for Peace in Palestine" followed by a screeniing of the documentary, "Drawn from the Fire, Children of the Intifada."The program will end with a Q&A with Ms. Spears and a...
Resistance to Open-Pit Mining in Peru & Fracking in New York
Robert Jereski & Gerardo Renique
Thousands of farmers occupying four lakes in Peru's highlands of Cajamarca have sparked a nationwide ,movement in defense of like and water. The four lakes are threatened by destruction by Colorado-...
Thomas Wirth
To kick off Black History Month and to celebrate what would have been Langston Hughes' 110th Birthday, we hold a special screening of Issac Julien's Looking for Langston. Less of a biopic, than a...
Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California
Donna Murch
In this nuanced and groundbreaking history, Donna Murch argues that the Black Panther Party (BPP) started with a study group. Drawing on oral history and untapped archival sources, she explains how a...
Existence is Resistance & Nana Dankwa present: “Hip Hop Is Bigger Than The Occupation” – A documentary about a ten day journey of artists traveling through Palestine, teaching and performing Non Violent...
Capitalism, Class & the State
Vivek Chibber
Sun Ra's Space is the Place
This Afro-Futuristic yarn features philosopher and Jazz pioneer Sun Ra and his Myth Science Orchestra. Summoned from Outer Space to save the Black race, this film is a meditation on slavery, cooptation and...
Part 2
Martin Davis
This ongoing seminar on Vol I of Marx' Capital, began in the Fall. Part 2 will begin this term at Chapter 15. New students are welcome to join the class at any time. A good background reading is Leo Huberman...
Body Ecology Performance Ensemble, Denae Hannah (dance), Mahogany Browne (poetry), Kamilah Aisha Moon (poetry), Maritri Garrett (music)
Each Wednesday in the month of February Women on Wednesday will feature the phenomenal creative expressions of women of the African Diaspora in poetry/spoken word, dance, music, song, and theater arts.
...A Marxist Analysis
Chris Williams
This class will examine the capitalist roots of the multi-faceted ecological crisis via a Marxist economic and...
An Evening of Poetry & Politics with Ewuare X Osayande
Ewuare X. Osayande
Writing in the socially-engaged poetic tradition of Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, Ewuare X. Osayande unleashes his latest book of poems, Whose America?, that takes on the political climate of...
Our Expansion in Consciousness
Curated by the Groundfloor Collective (Sophia Dawson, Lehna Huie, Casey Johanna, Alexandria Lust)
The “Ladies First 2012" art exhibition at the Brecht...
This mini-workshop, designed for people who have been curious about the Theater of the Oppressed (TO) but have not been able to commit to a full weekend workshop, will present an overview of the basic...
Marisol Ruiz
A first course for those with little to no previous knowledge of the language. Students speak Spanish from the first day and acquire basic speaking, reading, and writing skills while learning about Spanish...
Michael Lardner
The film narrates the story of David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who decides to fight for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War. The film won the...
Ganesh Trichur
This seminar will meet as a working group to study the historical trajectory of the U.S. Labor Movement since the late 19th century to understand its relationship with current crises. How have the forces of...
A Monthly Update & Discussion
Rick Wolff
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad....
Binahkaye Joy (dance), Piper Yvonne Anderson (theater arts), Una Karim (video arts), Malaika Adero (lit. reading), Bon Secours Community Works (theater arts), Tonya Hegamin, Samantha Thornhill & Company (theater arts)
Each Wednesday in the month of February Women on Wednesday will feature the phenomenal creative expressions of women of the African Diaspora in poetry/spoken word, dance, music, song, and theater arts.
...
Jose Rosa
Jose Rosa, an immigrant from El Salvador, with 15 years experience teaching Spanish to teenagers and adults, will conduct classes to develop conversational skills while learning more complex grammatical...
Russell Dale
Hegel's philosophy has had a great influence to much that has happened in the world since his time. Hegel is crucial to understanding much of modern philosophy as well as to understanding Marxism and the...
A Play by William Tucker, Directed by Ghenet Brianna Pinderhughes
Freedom Summer tells the story of Bob Moses, a Harvard graduate, who single-handedly initiated the voter registration efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the most racist...
A Play by William Tucker, Directed by Ghenet Brianna Pinderhughes
Freedom Summer tells the story of Bob Moses, a Harvard graduate, who single-handedly initiated the voter registration efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the most racist...
A Play by William Tucker, Directed by Ghenet Brianna Pinderhughes
Freedom Summer tells the story of Bob Moses, a Harvard graduate, who single-handedly initiated the voter registration efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the most racist...
Crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, poor education, inferiority complex, low expectation, poverty, corruption, poor health, and underdevelopment plagues people of African descent globally - Why? 500 years later from the...
Reflections on the State of Black America
Esther Armah, Joanne Griffith, Akiba Solomon, Michaela angela Davis
The Obama presidency represents a major milestone in black history and the struggle for political, economic and cultural equality in the United States. But how--if at all--has the first black presidency...
Kimani Fowlin (dance), Phakiso Collins (dance), Carmen Mojica (theater arts), 1st Generation Nigerian Project (theater arts), Dominique Morisseau (lit. reading), Delandria Mills (music)
Each Wednesday in the month of February Women on Wednesday will feature the phenomenal creative expressions of women of the African Diaspora in poetry/spoken word, dance, music, song, and theater arts. Women...
The Brecht Forum invites you to a Special Reception Celebrating Vinie Burrows & Esther Jackson.
Kayhan Irani & Marie-Claire Picher
Image Theater, part of the repertory of Theater of the Oppressed, was created by the late Brazilian director and cultural activist Augusto Boal (1931-2009).
Drawing on the theories of popular...
Benjamin Ramos Rosado and Micheal Tarif Warren
Join us for this special Black History Month...
Marisol Ruiz
A first course for those with little to no previous...
Curated and organized by Casey Johanna (Ground Floor Collective)
Concluding our Black History look at Afro-Futurism, the Brecht Forum and the Groundfloor Collective are proud to present two experimental films.
Child of Resistance(Haile Gerima, 1972, 36 minutes...
Discussion with Filmmaker Nizar Abboud
Filmed from land and air traveling 4,000 km inside Libya--from Tripoli to Ghat in the south and returning through the Akakus mountains, Germa, Wadi Ashati up to Liptis Magna in North Western Libay, ...
Special Forum on Global Women’s Empowerment
Panelists: Paloma McGregor, Aimee Cox, Imani Uzuri, Kayhan Irani, Anusha Mehar, Dayanara Marte. Moderator: Shani Jamila. Special performance by Imani Uzuri
Each Wednesday in the month of February Women on Wednesday will feature the phenomenal creative expressions of women of the African Diaspora in poetry/spoken word, dance, music, song, and theater arts.
...An Anthology
Gerardo Renique
José Carlos Mariátegui is one of Latin America’s most profound but overlooked thinkers. A self-taught journalist, social scientist, and activist from Peru, he was the first to emphasize that those fighting...
Two Books & 2 Discussions on Malcolm X
Noble Bratton
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the iconic Malcolm X, remains an indelible figure on the American political landscape some forty-seven years after his assassination. His workds, his stance, and his behaviors bring...
Beyond Boundaries, Building Solidarities
The course will serve as a ‘primer’ for progressives and leftists on contemporary South Asian politics in the region, while also providing a historical context for current events. The purpose of the course...
A Monthly Update & Discussion
Rick Wolff
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad....
Same Counter-Revolution, Different Day
Mick Collins
Mick Collins draws a thread between the collapse of the Soviet Union, the subsequent break-up of Yugoslavia and Rwanda's regime change with recent events in North Africa. He argues that “this model for...
Women, Trans & the Prison Industrial Complex
Tanisha Douglas, Sonni Farrow, Victoria Law, Tina Reynolds &
Laura Whitehorn
Many statistics and conversations alike about prisons, seem to present a uniform image of prison populations. If one were to believe the contrived image created by our contemporary culture about...
Solidarity or Sabotage?
Kim Scipes
The principles of trade unionism are based on working people acting together in solidarity with each other, to improve wages, working conditions, and life for themselves and all others. In its most developed...
Capitalism, Class & the State
Vivek Chibber
This session will consist of three lectures on the basic structure of capitalism and its relation to political power. We will examine how the specific class structure of...
Care Providers, Care Receivers, and the Struggle for Justice and Dignity in the Home
Allison Julien, Jennifer Klein, Premilla Nadasen & Sarah Strnad. Moderated by Rosemari Mealy
As America’s population ages, home care has become one of the fastest growing occupations in the U.S. economy. Nannies, housekeepers, and aides labor in private spaces meeting individual and family needs....
Everybody Loves Harvard
Verita$ critically examines Harvard’s historical role and its global impact. The film’s director describes Harvard¹s traditional character in three key words: rich, white, and male. The documentary...
A Conversation Series on Feminism, Anti-Racism, Leadership & the 99%
Melanie Butler, Nicole Carty, Ynestra King & Rob Robinson
We are now in a promising period of political imagination for a broad new anti-capitalist movement. This movement, primarily referred to as "The Occupy Movement" is of course much broader then just the...
A Conversation with Alexander Buzgalin
Alex Buzgalin is Professor of Political Economy at Moscow State University, and Editor of Alternativy. He is a leading figure in contemporary Russian, and post-Soviet, Marxism, author of many books...
Two Books & 2 Discussions on Malcolm X
Herb Boyd
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the iconic Malcolm X, remains an indelible figure on the American political landscape some forty-seven years after his assassination. His workds, his stance, and his behaviors bring...
Race, Sex and Class- Current Perspectives on the Movement
Selma James
In 1972, Selma James set out a new political perspective. Her starting point was the millions of unwaged women who, working in the home and on the land, were not seen as “workers” and their struggles viewed...
Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond
Lumumba Bandele, Dan Berger, Terry Bisson, Kenyon Farrow, Matt Meyer, Dequi Sadiki, Meg Starr, Challenging Male Supremacy Group & Laura Whitehorn. Moderated by Kazembe Balagun
Join us as we celebrate the release of Love and Struggle, the autobiography...
Communes and Utopia in Northern California
Iain Boal
In the shadow of the Vietnam war, a significant part of an entire generation refused their assigned roles in the...
Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective
scott crow
Join us for a presentation by scott crow from his new book Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective issued last year on PM Press.
The book is used as a...
A Report-Back on Theater and Solidarity in Afghanistan
Kayhan Irani
In 2010 and 2011 Kayhan Irani, playwright and Theater of the Oppressed facilitator, worked in Afghanistan using Theater of the Oppressed with Afghan Education Projects, a media for development organization....
Marie-Claire Picher
This weekend workshop focuses on exercises, games, and improvised scene work from the Theater of the Oppressed repertory developed by Brazilian director, popular educator and Workers Party activist Augusto...
The Berlin Years 1984-1992
Tina Campt, Ika Hugel Marshall & Dagmar Schultz
The Brecht Forum, The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Audre Lorde Project and The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies(CLAGS-CUNY) are proud to sponsor the NY premiere of Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984-1992....
Race After MultiCulturalism
Sophia Chang, Carolina Gonzalez, dream hampton, Vijay Prashad, Rinku Sen, John Wuo Wei Tchen.
DJ hit replay! Or shall we manually rewind this nostalgic cassette tape with a discerning finger to your favorite awkward 1990s multiculti blunders? The 1990s gave us “Sister Souljah moments,” the OJ Simpson...
Winning the War on Women and Girls
Bryonn Bain, Mikey Jay, Darnell Moore & Diallo Shabazz. Moderated by Esther Armah
Too Short, XXL magazine, Rush Limbaugh, parts of hip hop, the GOP plus 44% of sexual assaults happen to girls under 18; the world is 'waging war on women and girls. How can men help end this war? Challenge,...
Mark Rudd, Michael Strom & Challenging Male Supremacy Project
The second of a series of conversations interrogating questions of feminism, anti-racism, male chauvinism and leadership within the "99%" - this forum will focus specifically on the question of male...
Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Happening every first Friday of the month,!!FreEpLay!! is an evening of improvised performance. Strike Anywhere’s ensemble of dancers, musicians and actors riff on a different...
Julia Lee Barclay
In this beginning workshop, we will break down both the basic elements of how we communicate with each other and the (mostly unspoken/hidden) rules which govern that communication. Working with verbal and...
A Monthly Update & Discussion
Rick Wolff
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad....
A Monthly Update & Discussion
Rick Wolff
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad....
A Conversation with Members of the First US LGBTQ Delegate to Palestine
Katherine Franke, Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz, Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Darnell L. Moore, Pauline Park & Jasbir Puar
In January 2012, several prominent LGBTQ activists/scholars/cultural workers from the United States traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of the first delegation of its kind. This panel...
South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century
George Katsiaficas
South Korea's social movements are legendary yet relatively little is known about them. In this presentation, slides and other historical materials will be used to illustrate the history and unfolding logic...
Performing Symphony of Souls
Neues Kabarett is delighted to present Jason Kao Hwang’s improvising string orchestraSpontaneous River performing his composition, ...
Marisol Ruiz
A first course for those with little to no previous knowledge of the language. Students speak Spanish from the first day and acquire basic speaking, reading, and writing skills while learning about Spanish...
Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity
Monica L Miller
Slaves to Fashion is a pioneering cultural history of the black dandy, from his emergence in Enlightenment England to his contemporary incarnations in the cosmopolitan art worlds of London and New...
How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession
Barbara Garson
The Great Recession has thrown huge economic challenges at almost all Americans save the super-affluent few, and we are only now beginning to reckon up the human toll it is taking. Down the Up Escalator is an...
The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America
Writers for the 99% members including: A.J. Bauer, Jed Bickman, Suzanne Collado, Kate Doyle Griffiths-Dingani, Liza Featherstone, Danny Katch, Sean Larson, Kat Mahaney, Brian Merchant, Lisa Montanarelli, Amity Paye, Jon L Peacock, Colin Robinson & Christine Utz
"An essential and galvanizing on-the-ground account of how oxygen suddenly and miraculously flooded back into the American brain."
-Jonathan Lethem
"There are many books about #...
Jose Rosa
Jose Rosa, an immigrant from El Salvador, with 15 years experience teaching Spanish to teenagers and adults, will conduct classes to develop conversational skills while learning more complex grammatical...
Marie-Claire Picher
This workshop is an outgrowth of a collaboration and some recent conversations that took place between Julian Boal, TOPLAB facilitator Marie-Claire Picher and other members of TOPLAB. When it first...
Eric Holt Gimenez
Come to the NYC launch event of Food Movements Unite!, with remarks by the book’s editor Eric Holt Gimenez of Food First and dynamic discussion and debate on how to grow and strengthen the food movement here...
Part 2
Ganesh Trichur
This class will engage with some of the key interventions in labor movements and social movements that have followed the publication of Mike Davis' seminal work on politics and economy in the history of ...
Stories From the Front Lines of China's Great Urban Migration
Michelle Dammon Loyalka & Barbara Foley
Every year over 200 million peasants flock to China’s urban centers, providing a profusion of cheap labor that helps fuel the country’s staggering economic growth. Award-winning journalist Michelle Dammon...
Kazembe Balagun, Harmony Goldberg, Lee Schere and moderated by Brooke Lehman
Organization for a Free Society invites you to a discussion on the role of revolutionary organizations in broad based movement building. The Occupy movement has catalyzed momentum within the US unseen in...
From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy
Costas Panayotakis and Cathy Mulder
The dominant schools of neoclassical and neoliberal economics tell us that material scarcity is an inevitable product of an insatiable human nature. Against this, Costas Panayotakis argues that scarcity is...
Dispatches from the Front Lines of Labor
Paul Buhle, John Kim & Terry Marshall
Social movements since at least the late 1960s have been intimately connected with the comic art that their artists produced. We will celebrate the publication of It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from...
Marie-Claire Picher
Cop-in-the-Head is a collection of Theater of the Oppressed techniques that uses games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized forms of oppression, and explore power relations and collective...
Healthcare Activism from the Black Panthers to Now
Alondra Nelson
The Brecht Forum is taking the show on the road! As part of the inaugural Brecht Beyond Walls, we are happy to partner with our sister organization
Third Root Community Health Center (...
A Multimedia Show by Sabine Berendse & Paul Clements with live Eisler Music
Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) was one of the most fascinating and controversial German composers of the twentieth century....
Post Protest Celebration
TheHistory of Eugenics in the United States & How It Affects Psychiatric Care Today
Robert Whitaker
Although we usually associate eugenics with Nazi Germany, it was here in the United States that eugenic laws were first passed. In the early part of the 20th century, states passed laws that prevented the “...
A Special Presentation by William Loren Katz
William Loren Katz is the author of Black Indians and 40 other books on African American history. His research, writing and lectures have earned widespread praise from noted scholars such as John Hope...
Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Happening every first Friday of the month,!!FreEpLay!! is an evening of improvised performance. Strike Anywhere’s ensemble of dancers, musicians and actors riff on a different...
Challenging Capitalism
Rick Wolff
Today's economic crisis is capitalism's worst since the Great Depression. Millions have lost their jobs, homes and healthcare while those who work watch their pensions, benefits and job security decline. As...
A Film by Saul Landau with Commentary by Michael S. Smith
In April 1961, the CIA sent a force of Cuban exiles to overthrow the Cuban government. This resulted in the Bay of Pigs Fiasco. Fifty years later, a new documentary shows that US-backed violence against Cuba...
Paul Werner
Is it an accident that all of the major art museums in New York have a real-estate developer at the head of their Board of Trustees? Or that the Museum of Modern Art was founded and run by the Rockefellers?...
Noga Ashkenazi, Safiya Bandele, Carol Jochnowitz, Ray Korona, Ralph Nazareth, Marlon Peterson & Members of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory
What is it like to be a prisoner in this country? Repressive laws lead to inhuman punishments for men and women including teens. "Abolish all prisons?" as Angela Davis advocated. This night is an attempt to...
Julia Lee Barclay
In this beginning workshop, we will break down both the basic elements of how we communicate with each other and the (mostly unspoken/hidden) rules which govern that communication. Working with verbal and...
Intimate Life in Market Times
Arlie Russell Hochschild
“What happens to us as we outsource more and more of our personal—even intimate—tasks to paid "coaches," caretakers, companions, event planners and third world surrogate mothers? It takes a social...
(and why we shouldn't eat them)
David Nibert, Adam Weissman, Mickey Z. & Others TBA
What we choose to eat (and wear) has an impact far beyond each of us as individuals. This discussion--the first in a series--will look at the societal underpinnings of the commodification of sentient beings...
Bill Weinberg
Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru, where he was on assignment for The...
The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism
Roger Burbach & Michael Fox
Over the past few years, something remarkable has occurred in Latin America. For the first time since the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in the 1980s, people within the region have turned toward radical...
Love: Lessons, Legacy, Losses, Learning
Esther Armah, Marc Lamont Hill & Robert Cornegy Junior
There is nothing more revolutionary than black love.
How do you define love? How have those who raised you shaped who you became when it comes to love? How have...
An Evening with Michael Moore & Cornel West
Moderated by Esther Armah
DIRECTIONS:
7:00 - The main event is in the Hunter College Assembly Hall, in the North Building entrance on 69th Street between Lexington Avenue & Park Avenue.
5:30 -...
A One Day Workshop
Carmelina Cartei, Shoshana Brown, Julie Novas, Kate Cavanagh, Esperanza Martell, Ruben Mina, Onaje Muid, Sally Hyppolite, Javier Salamanca & others
This is an introductory hands-on workshop in the use of popular education concepts and techniques based on the complementary approaches to Education for Liberation developed by two Brazilian Marxist...
Curated by Ras Moshe featuring: Bill Cole-Sona, Hojok, Didgeridoo, Ras Moshe, Adesanya Akinyele, Larry Roland, Tor Yochai Snyder, Dave Ross & Ngoma Hill. Post-concert conversation with Kazembe Balagun
In the tradition of the downtown loft music scene, The Music Now Series is a monthly showcase of advanced music, organized by Ras Moshe.
6pm
May 19th Ensemble with Bill Cole-Sona,...
Q &A with M1 of Dead Prez, Mazzi of SOUL PURPOSE, Marcel Cartier, Saeed and others from the documentary.
Existence is Resistence presents a documentary about a ten- day journey of artists traveling through Palestine, teaching and performing Non Violent Resistance through the arts to children in refugee camps. The...
Nimah Nawwab
Saudi Arabian poet Nimah Ismail Nawwab is an internationally published and recognized writer, best-selling poet, editor, photographer, women- and youth-empowerment activist,
Notably, she is the...
The Struggle in Defense of the Rights to Health & a Clean Eenvironment in La Oroya, Peru
Esther Hinostroza & Conrado Olivera
La Oroya, Peru is often considered one of the ten most contaminated cities in the world. In a town of 35,000, 99% of the children have been tested to have extreme levels of lead poisoning. The cause of the...
The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan
Eric Laursen
Social Security, not for nothing do politicians call it the “third rail of American politics—touch it, and you die.” Yet a powerful, well-funded movement to phase out Social Security or even privatize it has...
Kayhan Irani & Marie-Claire Picher
Invisible Theater is one of the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed, in which "actors" create "theatrical" situations in public places, but where the public does not realize that a performance is...
Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio
Neues Kabarett presents Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio performing 'O Padreterno nun e` mercante ca pava o' sabbato – the world premiere of a new suite of compositions--featuring: Marco Cappelli (guitar), Ken...
The Resilience Advocacy Project
Join youth, artists, activists, and advocates for a dynamic dialogue and art showcase exploring young people's experiences with - and responses to - the City's current stop-and-frisk practices.
The...
Discussion with Gladys Marel Garcia-Perez
Gladys Marel Garcia-Perez, a participant in the Cuban Revolution, is a historian and has published numerous books on the history of the revolution. We will also show a 30 minute video "Wisdom of the Heart...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
Mark Doten, Kevin Gosztola, Ted Hearne & Chase Madar
Who is wikileaks activist Bradley Manning? What are his values and goals, and what is happening as his court martial proceeds? This 4-part series will explore Manning's revelations and his legal case, the...
A Reportback from Tunisia
This Tuesday we will host a reportback from some comrades who spent some weeks in April traveling around Tunisia, meeting with militants, rebels, anarchists, Stalinists, council communists, unionists,...
An Evening of Performance, Jazz and Improv
The Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble is an inter-disciplinary ensemble theater that has been generating original performance pieces since 1997. The permanent ensemble is comprised of some of N.Y.C.’s...
South Asians in America Today
Vijay Prashad
Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center, misdirected assaults on Sikhs and other South Asians flared on streets across the nation, serving as harbingers of a more suspicious, less discerning,...
Part Two
Russell Dale
Hegel's philosophy has had a great influence to much that has happened in the world since his time. Hegel is crucial to understanding much of modern philosophy as well as to understanding Marxism and the...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
The Play by Arthur Miller, starring Rebecca Balmer, William Barry, Peter Guaraci, Kalen J. Hall, Katie Labahn, Valerie O'Hara, Tony Plamieri, Brennan Vickery & Nilla Watkins
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread...
The Campaign to Suppress Radical Activism & Publishing Online
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Alfredo Lopez & Trevor Timm
Old-fashioned government opacity and secrecy face new challenges from online media and activism. Since the leaks of numerous diplomatic cables and Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, a massive legal, political,...
Monthly Update with a Report on Mondragon, Spain
Rick Wolff
This monthly update will feature, in addition to our usual review of the last month's major economic news, a Report on Mondragon, Spain. This unified community of worker cooperatives is now the...
Tribune of the People
Cliff Conner
Cliff Conner's biography is a fresh, welcome look at one of the most complex and fascinating figures of the French Revolution. Marat's tumultuous career has many echoes for our own time, among them...
A Potpourri of New Music mixing Bali, Java, Egypt and downtown New York
Barbara Benary, David Demnitz, Daniel Goode, Jody Kruskal,
Skip LaPlante, Laura Liben and David Simons
Gamelan Son of Lion, New York's new music gamelan, presents a collection of this year's experiments mixing instruments of Indonesia with downtown music and sounds of Bali, Java and elsewhere on the globe....
The State of Play in the “Designing Socialism” Discussion
David Laibman
“Central planning is a failure.” “Market socialism is an oxymoron.” Is anything left?
Believe it or not, the possibilities are just starting to emerge. The insufficient socialisms...
Julia Lee Barclay
In this beginning workshop, we will break down both the basic elements of how we communicate with each other and the (mostly unspoken/hidden) rules which govern that communication. Working with verbal and...
Tod Ensign & Kimber Heinz
Daniel Ellsberg, the Defense Department and RAND Corporation analyst who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said "I was the Bradley Manning of my day. In 1971 I too faced life in prison for exposing...
Introduced by Milton Allimadi
Ousmane Sembène’s film Xala, based on his novel of the same name, begins at the moment tha French colonials are “leaving” to make way for their African replacements. Their departure is more symbolic...
OFS Revolutionary Potluck Discussion Series
The occupation of Zucotti Park was for thousands of people an absolutely core aspect of the success of Occupy Wall Street, and when it was lost, the movement had to struggle to maintain its momentum. The...
Moments of Wonder & Betrayal in the English Revolution (1640-49)
Bristol Radical History Group
Despite the cheerleading you may have seen in the media about the Diamond Jubilee of the British Monarch, a wave of nausea and apathy, rather than nationalism has suffused 'Albion' of late. Echoes of the...
An evening with Arjun Gosh
Jana Natya Manch (Janam) was and is a sociopolitical phenomenon, a Delhi-based radical theater group active since 1973, whose work has long asserted the inseparability of art and politics.
A History...
Emma Cape, Shayana Kadidal & Betty Yu
The focus of this fourth discussion in the series will be twofold:
1) How the Bradley Manning case and WikiLeaks has impacted the media, shifted editorial standards, particularly concerning...
From Jack Johnson to Metta World Peace
Theresa Runstedtler in conversation with David J. Leonard
Moderated by Marc Lamont Hill
Sports are central to American public life in the twenty-first century – evidenced by the power and profitability of ESPN, the congressional hearings about steroids, and the ubiquity of sports programming in...
Forum Theater in Movement Building & Creating Community
Julian Boal & Marie-Claire Picher
Looking at the Occupy movement that captured the collective imagination last year, this extended workshop will examine the many ways Forum Theater can be used in our political and organizing work to help...
The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination
Alondra Nelson
Between its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. Alondra Nelson deftly recovers an indispensable aspect of the...
An Interactive Educational Tool Exploring Freedom in the Prison Nation
How do we measure freedom in an era of mass incarceration and the new Jim Crow?
Bay Area artist/educator Evan Bissell will facilitate a discussion and interactive presentation of The...
Introduced by Renee Conly
Director Luis Buñuel, who had been in exile in Mexico, was invited back to Spain by Franco to make a film. Buñuel agreed and made Viridiana as a way ridiculing or critizing the 'charity' afforded...
The Politics of Presence
Rosa Naparstek
"How our emotional landscapes form the personal and political roots of the world we create”
...
A full-day screening program organized with the...
Michael Lardner
This year marks the first summer that the ongoing Revolutions study group will be reading and discussing literature and/of/for Revolution. We will meet every Monday but Labor Day through Monday, October 1....
Tomer Heymann's documentary is a revealing glimpse into one society's population of outcasts: transgender Filipinos, who are among a group of international guest workers filling critical gaps in the Israeli...
The Brecht Forum stands with everyone to make radical left spaces accessible, especially for small children and parents. Join us for a special fundraiser film screening of Richard Pryor’s classic Bustin...
Sister Stella
Between the 501c-3 & Zuccotti The Question of Political Organization in the US Today
Kali Akuno, Raquel Lavina, Meaghan Linick, Shaun Lin, Eric Odell, Chloe Tribich, Max Uhlenbeck & Helena Wong
(With Special Performance by Desis Rising Up and Moving Youth)
The final sentence of Karl Marx's Theses on Feuerbach famously reads "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." So how to go about changing the world?...
The Red Power Mixtape
Featuring Matthew Birkhold, Jodi Dean, Harmony Goldberg, Richard Levins, Randy Martin, Liz Mestres, Donna Murch, Alondra Nelson, Eric Ribellarsi, Tim Schermerhorn, Shahid Stover, Astra Taylor, Ganesh Tricur, Rick Wolff & Others TBA
“The Working Class has nothing to lose but their chains... They have a world to Win”
Marx and Engels The Communist Manifesto
The call of Marx and Engels in the Communist...
This documentary by Bernie Dwyer and Roberto Ruiz Rebo, who produced the seminal documentary on the Cuban 5 "Mission Against Terror", exposes the story behind the lock up of 75 "independent" jhournalists,...
The Politics of Presence
The Hoodudes
Four veteran musicians, whose collective credits read like a 'Who's Who' of music, decided in 2005--just months before the Katrina disaster--to collaborate over their mutual love of the particular style of R...
A Conversation on American Justice
Alexis Goldstein, Natasha Lennard, Joe Macaré & Liliana Segura
It is now almost uncontested that in the United States the most privileged tier of society gets impunity while those on the bottom get criminalized and punished largely for their marginalized place in our...
Screening & Discussion with Chairman Fred Hampton Jr
"You can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill a revolutionary" was the mantle of late Black Panther Party(BPP) leader Fred Hampton. Leader of the Illinois chapter of the BPP, originated of the...
Introduced by Nancy Holmstrom & Richard Smith
Lucky Luciano is about the man who started the largest international crime organization in history. Beginning with Luciano’s repatriation from the United States to Italy in 1946 after 10 years in jail for...
Kazembe Balagun, Iyanna "Nana Soul" Jones & A. Shahid Stover
Are we living in a new progressive POSTRACIAL era? What is the relationship between claims of a POSTBLACK identity and advanced neo-liberal capitalist globalization? Does the overwhelming prevalence of an...
Migrante International Documentary, Migrante International, 30 mins, 2009
Each day 4,000 Filipinos leave the country in order to find work abroad. This film details the story of migrants living and...
Two Stages, Two Days, Two Boroughs
Jennie Litt & David Alpher, Steve Bloom, Nick Gianni Evolution, Cheryl Pyle & Nicolas Letmas Letman-Bertinovic, Ras Moshe, Radio Noir, Karl Berger & Ingrid Sertso & Co., Crystal Shipp, Upsurge!
Friday August 17, 17 Frost Theatre of the Arts (Williamsburg, Bklyn) and Saturday August 18, the Brecht Forum (Greenwich Village).
The 2012 edition of The Dissident Arts Festival will feature a wide...
The Learning
Hosted by Andres Zambrano Bravo
Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a...
Grand juries are tools of government harassment and repression that have long been used to intimidate and destroy radical movements. Currently there are grand juries convened on the West Coast in the...
An Interactive Seminar for People Who Encounter Resistance in Their Work
Facilitated by Tony Cealy
This is an interactive seminar for people who lead/work with groups who encounter “resistance” when working. The seminar will follow an agenda determined largely by the experience and concerns of the...
A Training Course for Facilitators in Dealing with Resistance
Facilitated by Tony Cealy
This highly practical hands-on course is particularly suited to facilitators who want to acquaint themselves with the challenges involved in working with “hard” groups within institutions such as prisons,...
Facilitated by Tony Cealy
A hot-peppered inspirational workshop for facilitators working with “difficult”, troubled or reluctant individuals and groups, and all those who seem intent on saying “no”—regardless of what the exercises...
Documenting the Year of the 99%
Occupying Photography: Documenting The Year of the 99%
Marking the first anniversary of the occupation of Wall Street, the Brecht Forum is proud to host "Occupying Photography: Documenting The Year...
Conversation with South African Activist Mazibuko Jara
Discussants-Ruthie Gilmore,Harmony Goldberg
Mazibuko Jara will discuss the current political situation in South Africa in the aftermath of the Lonmin-Marikana mineworker massacre and its broader context, including the internal ANC battles in the lead...
Introduced by Charity Scribner
The Merchant of Four Seasons tells the story of Hans, a fruit peddler, whose choice of career upsets his bourgeois family. The film explores many of Fassbinder's major themes, including...
Kazembe Balagun, Iyanna “Nana Soul” Jones, A. Shahid Stover & Preach D Truth Freedom (Occupy the Hood Movement)
Western imperialism responded to the real threat of Black liberation praxis, which arose in the late 60’s and early 70’s, by employing a classic neo-colonial strategy of isolating Black social unrest from...
The Ideas of Rosa Luxemburg
Paul LeBlanc
We are pleased to announce that this year's Goldberg lecture will be given by the renowned historian, author, and activist since his days in SDS, Paul LeBlanc. The lecture will follow a sumptuous Indian...
Paul LeBlanc
The ideas and experiences of those who went before are often quite valuable for activists of today and tomorrow . Especially interesting are ways of analyzing the interplay present-day and historical...
Firoze Manji
Few books have been as influential in understanding African impoverishment as this groundbreaking analysis. Rodney shows how the imperial countries of Europe, and subsequently the US, bear major...
One State for Israel & Palestine
Ahmed Moor, Antony Loewenstein & Phil Weiss
After Zionism brings together prominent thinkers on the Middle East question to dissect the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians, and to explore possible forms of a one-state...
Its Immediate Political Challenges in the US, Europe & China
Rick Wolff
Our Monthly Economic Update for Wednesday, Sept 19, will focus on global capitalism's evolution this summer. The US economy stalled (its short and shallow "recovery” over), its politics became electorally...
A Special Screening of South of the Border
As part of our ongoing efforts to educate about Cuba, the Cuban 5 and the Cuban political system, The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5 is hosting this film screening as part of "Free the Cuban 5...
Marisol Ruiz
A first course for those with little to no previous knowledge of the language. Students speak Spanish from the first day and acquire basic speaking, reading, and writing skills while learning about Spanish...
Donald-Nicholson Smith
Originally published just months before the May 1968 upheavals in France, Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life offered a lyrical and aphoristic critique of the "society of the spectacle...
Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin with Doug Henwood
Panitch and Gindin’s newest book offers a significant rethinking of the development of global capitalism....
Facilitated by Marie-Claire Picher
Friday: 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Saturday: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sunday: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Featuring Sonny Simmons (alto sax, English horn), Michael Marcus (reeds), John Austria (piano), Rashaan Carter (bass), Jay Rosen (drums).
Neues Kabarett is delighted to present The Cosmosamatics returning from their European summer tour for a rare New York City performance.
The Cosmosamatics were formed in 2000, but are the fruit of a...
A Photo Essay & Soundscape by Siyaka Taylor-Lewis
The men in the exhibit are from diverse origins that include the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. The commonality they share is that despite their diverse skin tone(s) and/or countries of origin,...
Jose Rosa
Jose Rosa, an immigrant from El Salvador, with 15 years experience teaching Spanish to teenagers and adults, will conduct classes to develop conversational skills while learning more complex grammatical...
Analyzing the Roots of the Crisis & Envisioning Solutions
Chris Williams
This class will examine the capitalist roots of the multi-faceted ecological crisis via a Marxist economic and political analysis. Background will include discussion of the science of climate change, the...
A. Shahid Stover
Is Art merely a reflection of the ideology of the ruling power elite? Can Art function as a reservoir of cultural resistance against established power? Is the meaning of Art found exclusively in the...
From Social Oppression to Radical Action
Sr. Clare Marie Therese, ICM
Street Theater, as conceived and presented in India, is a theater form that was evolved by Badal Sircar (1925-2011), one of the greatest playwrights of all times. Sircar, originally from Calcutta, began his...
Russell Dale
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) is widely considered to be one of the giants of European philosophy. Kant's works are the starting point of “classical German philosophy” which culminates with Hegel only to be...
A Workshop on How to Create and Present Performances for Social Change at Marches, Rallies, Demonstrations & Other Outdoor Events
Facilitated by Sr. Clare Marie Therese, ICM
Friday: 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm;
Saturday: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm; and
Sunday: 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
Street Theater, as conceived and presented in India, is a theater form that was evolved by...
Discussion with Directors Eron Davidson and Ana Nogueira
There are many lessons to draw from the South African experience of Apartheid relevant to conflicts all over the world. Roadmap to Apartheid explores in detail the apartheid comparison as it is used in the...
Monthly Update & Book Launch
Rick Wolff
This monthly update will be special because it will launch Professor Wolff's latest book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.
Discussion will focus workers' self-directed enterprises...
Introduced by the Brecht Forum's Revolutions Study Group
France in 1719 was in decline after the successful rule of Louis XIV, with the largest population in Europe in the midst of unrest, rising poverty, and widespread violence with frequent conscription of...
Steve Bloom
If you write or are interested in writing poetry and would like to exchange thoughts with other socially-conscious poets, this monthly workshop may be a good place for you. All welcome, so come in and try it...
Zeke Finkelstein
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), founder of the tradition in modern US/European philosophy called “Pragmatism” and one of the founders of modern logic, as well as of the field of “semiotics” (the study of...
Strike Anywhere Master Class Series
Nolan Kennedy & Leese Walker
Strike Anywhere's Artistic Director, Leese Walker will teach a workshop in Soundpainting. Soundpainting is the live composing sign language for musicians, dancers, actors, poets, and visual artists working...
Stanley Aronowitz
The conventional approach to this text focuses on the accumulation process and generally follows the thesis that with this and The German Ideology (1845) Marx “breaks” with his earlier theory of...
Part 1 of a Two-Part Course
Michael Pelias
This class examines the beginnings of materialism from early Greek thinking , cosmological speculation to systematic philosophical dialogues and treatises concerning questions of excellence, friendship,...
Peter Bratsis
From the rise of the Arab Spring and Occupy movements to the folly of the Obama administration and the debt crisis in Europe, the present political conjuncture is constantly asking us to consider the ways...
Solo Project with Mazz Swift
Neues Kabarett is delighted to present Mazz Swift performing as her renowned solo act - MazzMuse.
On this night, Swift plans to perform the world premiere of a new composition, "The Desert Can Be...
The Passion of Noor Inayat Khan
A New Play by Joe Martin/ Directed by Adrian Roman
A play on the life of the young Sufi woman, of Indian extraction, who emerged as the heroine of the French Resistance known as “Madeleine”—a devotee of nonviolence and one of the most highly honored heroes...
The Passion of Noor Inayat Khan
A New Play by Joe Martin/ Directed by Adrian Roman
A play on the life of the young Sufi woman, of Indian extraction, who emerged as the heroine of the French Resistance known as “Madeleine”—a devotee of nonviolence and one of the most highly honored heroes...
A Public Conversation between Protagonists of Hemispheric Student Struggles in Chile, Quebec, & New York
Featuring Camila Vallejo & Noam Titelman of the Chilean Student Movement. Moderated by David Harvey
Reserved seating has filled. The remaining 200 or so seats in the Proshansky Auditorium will be open on a first-come, first-serve basis. Arrive early and please bring a photo ID.
...Mexico 1910 - 1920
Michael Lardner with Gerardo Renique
This October we welcome Gerardo Renique to provide his expertise onmany aspects of the Mexico, from the development of economic forces, class formations, inter-regional and inter-class contestations in late...
By W.E.B. DuBois
Tim Schermerhorn
Black Reconstruction is an essential and primary building block in understanding the culture and politics of the United States. It is also an excellent (arguably the best) place to start...
Join the Brecht Forum for a conversation and Presidential debate viewing. We promise a sweet time with salty snacks and tart commentary. 8 pm ore debate comments, 9 pm main event.
Jodi Dean in conversation with Bruno Bosteels (Moderated by Astra Taylor)
In this new title in Verso’s Pocket Communism series, Jodi Dean unshackles the communist ideal from the failures of the Soviet Union. In an age when the malfeasance of international banking has alerted...
Sinan Antoon, Bassam Haddad & Maya Mikdashi
The uprising against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, which began in March 2011, has polarized the U.S. left. Some denounce the rebels, whom they view as fighting to overthrow a regional bulwark against...
Cliff DuRand
Recreating Democracy in a Globalized State treats the key question for anti-capitalist movements around the world: how can the national state be democratized in an era when transnational...
From Pablo Neruda to Louis Reyes Rivera
An Evening of Spoken Word Poetry and Music
The Brecht Forum and the National Writers Union have come together to celebrate the life and work of Pablo Neruda and Luís Reyes Rivera, two great poets with different styles yet united by their connection...
Lessons from Libya
Younes Abouyoub & Horace Campbell
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ started as a genuine popular uprising but has been hijacked gradually. It has had different developments and consequences in different African and Arab countries. Why is the...
Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle
Silvia Federici
Written between 1975 and the present, the essays collected in this volume represent years of research and theorizing on questions of social reproduction and the consequences of globalization. Originally...
Michelle Chen, Dana Frank, Richard Greenwald & Jacob Remes. Moderated by Daniel Katz.
When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker threatened the collective bargaining rights of the state’s public sector employees in early 2011, the massive protests that erupted inresponse put the labor movement back...
S.E. Anderson, Herb Boyd, Joseph "Jazz" Hayden, Iyanna "Nana Soul" Jones, A. Shahid Stover, members of the Paul Robeson FreedomSchool
By Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America, A Bright Room Called Day examines a group of artists and
activists struggling against the rise of fascism in...
Martin Duberman
Howard Zinn was perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated popular interpreter of American history in the twentieth century, renowned as a bestselling author, a political activist, a lecturer, and one...
Annual Benefit Party for the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Join the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble for an evening of Mexican fingerfoods, live music, international performances by Teatro Foro Mexico & the Tours Soundpainting Orchestra (France), a silent...
Sueños Perdidos (Lost Dreams) & Veneno de mi Suegra (The Poison of my Mother in Law)
Presented by the Women of Teatro Foro Mexico
The members of Teatro Foro Mexico are not professional actors; rather they are women with a story to tell. They are all from the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, a region with a high incidence of migration. The...
Film Portraits of LGBTQ Dominican Experiences
Carlos Rodriguez
The Brecht Forum will be open all night to watch the election results- join us for sweet comrades, salty snacks and punchy commentary as we debate the future of the country. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Steve Bloom
If you write or are interested in writing poetry and would like to exchange thoughts with other socially-conscious poets, this monthly workshop may be a good place for you. All welcome, so come in and try it...
Film Screening and Discussion
In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. They spent between six and 13 years in prison before a serial...
Film Screening & Discussion
The Brecht Forum, along with Cinema Conservancy and Film Forum are proud to welcome a restored 35mm print of the civil rights classic Nothing But A Man. Join the Brecht Forum for a special screening that...
1. The Birth of the Jongleur, 2. The Birth of the Worker, & 3. The Fool at the Foot of the Cross with a Prologue by Machiavelli
Adapted & Performed by Tony Palmieri
Dario Fo was born in 1926 in Lombardy, Italy. He began his career as a comic and mime and became a highly successful actor, director and writer of satirical comedies. He received the Nobel Prize for...
A Holistic Workshop
Faciliated by Kira-Laura Ferrand
Because of flooding in the Westbeth complex, this workshop will take place at:
The Drilling Company
236 West 78 Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue)
Third floor
New...
Monthly Update
Rick Wolff
Actual economic developments shape the agenda for each of these monthly Tuesday meetings. Rick Wolff, with occasional guests, presents an economic update and an analysis of some particular economic topics...
& a Selected Short
Introduced by Rachel Rakes
First shown on 7 April 1933, Zero for Conduct was subsequently banned in France until 15 February 1946. The film draws extensively on director Jean Vigo's boarding school experiences to depict a...
Leading up to the Urban Uprising: Re-Imagining The City Conference, Right to the City Alliance, Front Group and The Brecht Forum are organizing a special screening and discussion "Urban Uprising: A Right to...
Deconstructing Empire at Home and Abroad
Deepa Kumar, Rupal Oza, Sonny Singh & Saadia Toor
The summer of 2012 witnessed a rash of anti-Muslim attacks from homemade chemical bombs being thrown at Muslim schools to attacks at mosques. A mosque in Joplin, Missouri was burned to the ground in an...
Come watch a screening of Guy Debord's classic film based on his 1967 book of the same title—the Situationist International (SI) text that informed and motivated the French Revolution of May/June 1968. Using...
Making Sustainability a Reality
Tony Sirna
Our society is wrestling with questions of sustainability and climate change, with many groups working towards a sustainable future. At Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage that sustainable future is here now. If you...
Transforming Disaster Response
In what was the largest Atlantic Hurricane ever recorded, Hurricane Sandy killed at least 193 people in 7 countries. In the United States, the storm was felt most severely in New York City...
Yes, sisters and brothers. The holiday sounds of Hans Eisler,Brecht and Original Red Microphone Music...coming your way.
"Holiday Music" with
The Red Microphone
John Pietaro-Vibes/...
Walter Rodney on Film
Renee Conly, Jeremy Glick, Kristin Moriah, Lewanne Jones
"The Terror and the Time is a breathtaking film, one that is so complex in its imagery — so poetic in fact — that I find it difficult to conjure up in words. Images appear first as simple denotation...
Speakers include: Mizue Aizeki, Kazembe Balagun, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, David Harvey, Marian Kramer, Peter Marcuse, Frances Fox Piven, Rob Robinson, Miguel Robles-Duràn, Nancy Romer, Pete White & Many Others
...
(1931 – 2012)
Tito’s father was a Turkish Jew, who became a philosopher and friend of Heidegger’s in Germany in the 1920s, a painter and friend of Sartre’s and Picasso’s in France in the early 1930s, a general in the...
Monthly Update
Rick Wolff
Actual economic developments shape the agenda for each of these monthly Tuesday meetings. Rick Wolff, with occasional guests, presents an economic update and an analysis of some particular economic topics...
Martin Duberman & Gerald Meyer
*Note: THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE AT BARNES AND NOBLE, 2289 BROADWAY (AT 82 STREET)
Howard Zinn was perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated popular interpreter of American history in the...
Tom Adcock, S.J. Rozan & Steve Wishnia. Moderated by Kenneth Wishnia
A group of progressive crime writers discuss the ups and downs of working in a popular genre with a long history of social commentary (going back to Hammett in the 1920s), the importance of incorporating...
The Evolution of Community, Education, and Agriculture in the 21st Century
Eric Herm
Strike Anywhere's Artistic Director, Leese Walker will teach a workshop in Soundpainting. SOUNDPAINTING is the live composing sign language for musicians, dancers, actors, poets, and visual artists working...
Facilitated by Marie-Claire Picher
This one-day workshop, designed for people who have been curious about the Theater of the Oppressed (TO) but have not been able to commit to a full weekend workshop, will present an overview of the basic...
Featuring:Will Connell (alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute), Chris Forbes (piano), Larry Roland (bass), Thurman Barker (drums)
Neues Kabarett is delighted to present the Will Connell quartet on December 8th. This quartet focuses on the multi-reedist’s own compositions and consists of Connell (alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute...
A Retirement Party for Liz Mestres | Celebrating the Founders of the Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School
Join us for a special evening! As you may know, our Executive Director for the past 18 years, Liz Mestres, is stepping down at the end of the 2012. Liz along with Arthur Felberbaum...
Introduced by Matthew Micka
Pyaasa tells the story of struggling poet, trying to make his works known in post-independence India, and a prostitute with a heart of gold who eventually helps him get his poems published. ...
Steve Bloom
If you write or are interested in writing poetry and would like to exchange thoughts with other socially-conscious poets, this monthly workshop may be a good place for you. All welcome, so come in and try it...
A Night of Video Dispatches from the Front Lines of Spain, Greece & Portugal
Brandon Jourdan & Marianne Maeckelbergh
Since the dawn of the most recent crisis of capitalism in 2008, there have been uprisings all over the globe. Around the world, advocates for a different world and different social relations have engaged in ...
South of the Border
Lenny Foster
Join us for our ¡Cuba 101 Winter Film! As part of our efforts to educate the NYC community about Cuba, the Cuban 5, and other national liberation struggles, the Project will be hosting a screening of South...
Curated by Ras Moshe
Continuing in the tradition of the loft jazz scene(i.e.- Studio Rivbea and...
Debt is an integral part of our capitalist economy that keeps us increasingly dependent on oppressive power structures. The vast majority of our lives are characterized not only by our personal debts--credit...