In 1984, poet/activist/lesbian Audre Lorde went to Germany for treatment of cancer. Her years there not only  marked a resurgence of her written work (The Cancer Journals) but also the development of a...

Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio performing 'O Padreterno nun e` mercante ca pava o' sabbato – an encore presentation of a new suite of compositions.

featuring: Marco Cappelli (guitar), Ken Filiano (bass),...

Jazz, New Music and Free Improv musicians perform in a special fundraiser to help beloved percussionist, composer, teacher Warren Smith rebuild his priceless percussion collection lost to Hurricane Sandy’s...

Alexis Tsipras is a Greek left wing politician, member of the Hellenic parliament, president of the Synaspismos political party since 2008, head of the SYRIZA parliamentary group since 2009 and Leader of the...

“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.” --Theodore W. Allen...

This is an introduction to Serge’s Memoirs of a Revolutionary, the complete English translation of which has just been published by the New York Review of Books, and which will be read in the class,...

Kicking off Black History Month 2013, Anthony Thompson Adeagbo and Renaldo Davidson’s new artistic collaboration Langston Hughes’-The Black Clown Exhibition is inspired by Hughes’ "The Black Clown"...

2012 saw an upsurge in protests against the NYPD's policy of "stop and frisk.", a tactic aimed at criminalizing Black and Brown youth. These protests were augmented by the use...

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...

Theodore W. Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, with its focus on racial oppression and social control, is one of the twentieth-century’s major contributions to historical understanding. This...

Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode Robeson lived a colorful and amazing life. Her career and commitments took her many places: colonial Africa in 1936, the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, the founding...

Based on the book 9.5 Theses on Art and Class, this class will engage several current debates in art criticism from a marxist standpoint and engage questions such as "How does creative labor fit into...

Fraternity and sorority members clash with the other students at a historically black university in this politically charged musical from director Spike Lee. Dap (Laurence Fishburne) is a politically...

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...

Theodore W. Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, with its focus on racial oppression and social control, is one of the twentieth-century’s major contributions to historical understanding. This...

Based on personal testimonies, Frozen Happines recounts the struggle of a mother and her children to gain the freedom of their husband and father. Falsely charged with the assassination of New York-...

LaMaMa presents The Foundry Theatre's production of
GOOD PERSON OF SZECHWAN by Bertolt Brecht

Location: 66 East 4th street btw Bowery & 2nd Avenue.

Can we...

Are you tired of capitalism (and its good buddies like racism, patriarchy, homophobia and militarism)? Are you tired of the life you find yourself living, a life you're seemingly forced to live? Are you...

Between 1965 and 1972, African American students at upwards of a thousand historically black and white American colleges and universities organized, demanded, and protested for Black Studies, progressive...

In celebration of International Working Women's Day and Women's History Month, the Brecht Forum presents a rare screening of Yolande Du Art's Angela, A Portrait of a Revolutionary. Produced in 1972, the film...

The horrific sexual assault in New Delhi in December 2012 captured worldwide media attention, generating a debate and activist interventions that also spanned the globe.  In...

“The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America,” the second volume of “The Invention of the White Race” (Verso Books, 2012) by Theodore W. Allen will be discussed this Friday night, March 8, 2013 at 7:30...

In the last three decades federal, state and local housing agencies have drastically reduced public housing subsidies, demolished many projects, and entered into public-private partnerships that give banks...

These Tuesday evenings begin with updates and analyses of major economic events during the last month. We focus especially on the ongoing global capitalist economic crisis, government responses, and how they...

All across the country, the bosses are burning our contracts. Documents that once offered a guarantee of steady if modest raises and some measure of protection against arbitrary employment policies today...

The workshop will introduce participants to the fundamentals of Clown—we will take a moment to enjoy and relish how ridiculous we are! Whether it is our human physicality, mannerisms, environment, our ideas...

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...

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...

NOTE: Due to illness, this session is POSTPONED to APRIL 6.

How can residents in homes being foreclosed best be helped to stay in their homes? Should only those who can afford them...

All across the country, the bosses are burning our contracts. Documents that once offered a guarantee of steady if modest raises and some measure of protection against arbitrary employment policies today...

How can residents in homes being foreclosed best be helped to stay in their homes? Should only those who can afford them be helped to stay? Should banks or lenders be made whole by government help if there...

A university activist on the run from the police finds sanctuary through Party connections in the apartment of an attractive female ad executive who shelters him....

The Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble was founded in 1997 in NYC by Artistic/Producing Director, Leese Walker. Its mission is to promote empathy, free-thinking and greater social awareness through...

Songs of Freedom is a celebration of the life and work of James Connolly, the Irish revolutionary socialist martyred by the British government for his role in the Easter Rising of 1916. It is at...

The Chinese-Taiwanese company Foxconn employs more than one million people in China alone. As the world's biggest contract manufacturer in electronics it works for Apple and many other brands. Foxconn's...

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...

Neues Kabarett is pleased to present Michael Marcus and his quintet, Magic Door, one of several projects led by the veteran multi-reedist. Featuring: Michael Marcus (clarinet), Aruan Ortiz (piano/electric...

In the past two years, the young workers of India's largest automobile manufacturer in the Gurgaon, Haryana Industrial Belt, outside Delhi, have led a ground-breaking campaign against systemic exploitation...

What are the net economic effects of rent controls? Do they restrict private development, keep the middle class in the city, slow gentrification, help the poor, endanger good housing maintenance, or punish...

Earthdriver.org in conjunction with the Brecht Forum is thrilled to introduce a new music series, A Sunday Salon. Tonight's performance will feature Paul Joseph and Metrosonics, with an acoustic set by Baba...

Catastrophism explores the politics of apocalypse—on the left and right, in the environmental movement—and examines why the lens of catastrophe can distort our understanding of the dynamics at the heart of...

Roy Bourgeois (founder of the School of the Americas Watch) and Medea Benjamin (CODEPINK/Global Exchange cofounder) have sustained the Antiwar movement for decades and inspired activism in others. Join with...

In  March 2009 Continental Tire announced it was closing its plant near Paris. The 1200 workers suddenly facing a jobless future decided...

Looking at the Occupy movement that captured the collective imagination in late 2011, and some of the burgeoning newer movements that have since coalesced, this one-day workshop will examine some of the ways...

City planners make maps. Seasoned experts give tours. It doesn't have to be this way! Through counter-tourism, people investigate the grassroots life and history of their...

The Indian Supreme Court has often been defined as one of the most powerful judiciaries in the world. Known as one of the most accessible courts due to its famous Public Interest Litigation or Social Action...

Live performance of jazz and poetry in honor of Afro-surrealist pioneer and activist Jayne Cortez

Lineup:

3:30
Althea SullyCole-Kora

4:00
Mariposa-Poetry
Ras-...

Join us for a panel discussion on imprisonment and resistance featuring Sahar Francis, director of the Ramallah-based prisoners' rights organization Addameer (Arabic for "conscience"), in conversation with...

Forty years ago Assata Olugbala Shakur, long a subject of the FBI's infamous Counter Intelligence Program due to her elevated political consciousness and formidable organizing skill, was targeted for...

In our society, the process of growing old is at once beautiful and awe-inspiring, and, for families and people close to an aging person, can be an ongoing, celebratory relationship. But for the aging person...

Join us for a panel discussing featuring indigenous activists from Guatemala and Belize speaking on freedom of expression, land rights, and the movement against extractive industries. 

Guatemala has...

In 2006, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play. Few plays have had a similar impact globally on social norms and conditions due to its critical...

The legacy of the Mexican Revolution has continued to inspire social movements over the century. From organizing efforts of the United Farm Workers, the Zapatistas, to protests against ongoing drug war, the...

Africa is portrayed as a tragedy in the mainstream media, the victim of bad leaders and bad luck. Yet if we scratch the surface, what we perceive as tragic is the result of years of underdevelopment. The...

In 2006, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play. Few plays have had a similar impact globally on social norms and conditions due to its critical...

These Tuesday evenings begin with updates and analyses of major economic events during the last month. We focus especially on the ongoing global capitalist economic crisis, government responses, and how they...

NOTE: This event is POSTPONED. Watch for a...

SoCorpo is a vocal duo comprised of Sasha Bogdanowitsch & Sabrina Lastman, whose music stretches the possibilities of the human voice and bridges gaps between contemporary new music, jazz, folk &...

Schedule:
June 17: Opening discussion
June 24, July 1 & 8: Philip Roth’s I Married A Communist
July 15, 22 & 29: E.L. Doctorow’s Book...

An Unlikely Warrior tells the amazing biographic story of Herman Ferguson. The book chronicles his evolution from an “ all- american “ boy growing up in the Jim Crow South to a Pan Africanist/ Black...

The historical documentary  Greek American Radicals - the untold story  presents  a forgotten page of Greek immigrant experience in America: the role of immigrants in the radical labor movement in the United...

WORKSHOP IS CURRENTLY FULL!

This three-day workshop is an outgrowth of a collaboration and some conversations that took place over the years between Julian Boal, TOPLAB facilitator Marie-Claire...

A man and a woman arrive in a cafe-hotel near the Belgian frontier. The customers recognize the man from the police's description. His name is Amedee Lange, he murdered Batala in Paris. His lady friend...

Harold Loomis took to the road with his young daughter to find his wife and on the journey he discovers his song that leads him to his life.

...

Harold Loomis took to the road with his young daughter to find his wife and on the journey he discovers his song that leads him to his life.

...

Neues Kabarett is proud to present multi-instrumentist, composer, producer, and theorist/musicologist, Kali. Z. Fasteau in an evening of her new music, a world premiere.  She will perform on piano, voice,...

Peace, Bread, and Justice: in the 1970s, this was the banner under which the Global South united. The time seemed ripe for massive change in the global order, where the old superstructure would be turned...

Our current period is marked by capitalist-imposed austerity that has ripped the fabric of working people's lives--displacing people from their homes, communities and jobs. The continued assault on the...

GASLAND PART II shows how the stakes have been raised on all sides in one of the most important environmental issues facing our nation today. The film demonstrates that the gas industry’s...

The Foucauldian concept of specific forms of resistance has come to the fore in radical thought, as seen in terrains as diverse as academic social theory and anarchist activism. It has displaced earlier...

Morgan Delt (played by David Warner) is a failed artist and son of left parents who own a fish and chips shop in downmarket London. The film starts off when his haute bourgeois wife Leonie (played by Vanessa...

During his 60-year career as an activist, organizer and "troublemaker," Bayard Rustin formulated many of the strategies that propelled the American civil rights movement. His passionate belief in Gandhi's...

A patriotic and utterly sincere drone pilot and his wife are detained by the federal government and held indefinitely in government custody without a conviction or a trial after one of the President’s...

The documentary centers around the theory put forward by many, and most recently by Michelle Alexander (who appears in the movie), that mass incarceration has become "The New Jim Crow." That is, since the...

Written by Lewis H. Lapham, this film explores America’s most taboo topic: class, seeking to answer the question, "Does America have a ruling class?" Its producers consider it the first "dramatic-documentary...

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...

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...

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...

Giovanni Arrighi’s 1994 work, The Long Twentieth Century, is a masterpiece of historical sociology and political economy of the capitalist world system over seven long centuries of accumulation and over-...

This class will provide an invaluable background for the study of the worldwide workers radicalization beginning toward the end of World War I whose greatest success was the Russian Revolution of 1917. The...

Special foci of October 8 program:
1. Causes and consequences of government shutdown and debt ceiling standoff
2. Capitalism's global relocation and its social...

Le Havre is a 2011 comedy-drama which tells the story of a shoeshiner who tries to save an immigrant child in the French port city Le Havre.

Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling...

A close reading of the crucial chapters of Marx's Capital, Volume III including crisis theory, tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the Trinitarian formula and the oft misunderstood fictitious...

A comprehensive engagement with political theory from the ancient- Aristotle's Politics, the modern- Machiavelli's The Prince to the all too contemporary- Carl Schmitt's Concept of the Political...

Workshop days and times are: Friday, October 18, 2013 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm; Saturday, October 19 10:00 am to 6:00 pm; and Sunday, October 20 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.

Forum Theater is one of the forms in...

Yes sisters and brothers, its change time again and that change entails a new location.
The Brecht is now located in Brooklyn! Within the complex called The Commons on Atlantic Ave. The classes.....

On Wednesday October 23rd, the Brecht Forum organized a panel discussion on What Do We Mean When We Say Privilege, Ally & Comrade? One of the male panelists, a long time comrade and former employee of...

With Pilar Padilla, Elpidia Carrillo, George Lopez and Adrien Brody

Bread and Roses’ tagline hints at the ending: “The balance of power is about to change.” With subtitles in English and Spanish,...

This six-week course will explore Victor Serge's history of the crucial year 1917-18, written in 1928-29 after the author's expulsion from the Communist Party as a Left Oppositionist. Comparisons with...

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...

A Reportback from Chile

Revolutionary community organizing has a long, significant history in Chile. Today, folks are increasingly putting their roots down, coming together to form new, autonomous...

Workshop days and times are: Saturday, November 23, 2013 10:00 am to 6:00 pm; and Sunday, November 24, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.

Cop-in-the-Head is a collection of Theater of the Oppressed techniques...

Five progressive crime writers discuss working in a popular genre with a long history of social commentary (going back to Dashiell Hammett in the 1920s), how and why they incorporate such viewpoints in their...

These Tuesday evenings begin with updates and analyses of the last month’s major economic events. We focus on the global capitalist economic crisis, government responses, and the growing challenges to...

Come celebrate the holiday season and the end of the Brecht Forum's first season in Brooklyn at out annual holiday party. 
There will be drinks and live jazz provided by the legendary Bill Cole...

Over the past several weeks many Brecht Forum subscribers and supporters have begun to take an increasingly active interest in how the Brecht Forum is run and in what role the board of directors plays.  In...