Patrick Radden Keefe Presents Empire of Pain in conversation with Ginia Bellafante. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in […]

Lunchtime talk. In The Business of Personal Finance: How to Improve Financial Wellness, Joseph Calandro, Jr. and co-author John Hoffmire present, in a highly accessible way, how to effectively understand […]

Marriage is the foundation of a Chinese family. As the Chinese saying goes: a harmonious family prospers everything (家和万事兴). It used to be the norm that once people marry, they […]

Diane Zinnia, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Jessica Dulong and Richard Jeffrey Newman read from their work during this month's virtual salon. The theme: trauma.

In this lecture, Adam Van Doren explores well-known and lesser-known historic sites in the 13 original North American colonies, accompanied by his paintings.

Drama and myth frame the life and death of Maya Deren. Born in Kiev in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution, she died forty-four years later in New […]

For three decades Josef Mengele, the doctor who performed horrific experiments on Auschwitz prisoners, floated through South America until the day he collapsed in the Brazilian surf in 1979. In […]

Join the Seaport Museum as we welcome author Jonathan H. Rees for the release of his new book, Fulton Fish Market: A History. Together, we will hear some of the […]

An empowering picture book that invites us to explore and embrace our emotions from Karamo, talk show host and culture expert of Netflix's hit series Queer Eye, and Jason Brown, […]

Online lecture.

Book presentation. Cities are central to prosperity: they are hubs of innovation and growth. Yet the economic vitality of wealthy cities is marred by persistent and pervasive inequality. In his […]

Throughout history, Jews have been accused of using the blood of non-Jews for “rituals.” This accusation, which as come to be called “blood libel,” dates to the second century BCE […]

Rita Kaplan Lowenstein was born in Warsaw, Poland to Jewish parents Bernard and Rachel Kaplan. Her father owned chemical manufacturing plants around Warsaw, and her mother was a pianist and […]

Reading. As It Turns Out is a family story. Alice Sedgwick Wohl is writing to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister […]

Skateboarding isn’t just a recreational activity, but a professional sport, lifestyle, art form, and cultural phenomenon. The striking book Four Wheels and a Board: The Smithsonian History of Skateboarding captures […]

Online lecture.

Commemorate Washington’s emotional farewell to his Officers that took place in the Long Room on December 4, 1783 with $1 admission to the Museum! Witness a reenactment of the Farewell […]

Lauren Young’s new book, Hitler’s Girl, is a groundbreaking history that reveals how authoritarianism nearly took hold in Great Britain in the 1930s. Young details the pervasiveness of Nazi sympathies […]

Judith Thurman, a prolific staff writer at The New Yorker for more than two decades, has gathered a selection of her essays and profiles in A Left-Handed Woman. They consider […]

Since the nineteenth century Jews have been involved in organized crime all over the U.S. Some of the most famous mafiosos including Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Mickey Cohen were […]

Famed marine biologist, photographer, and USCG-licensed captain, Gaelin Rosenwaks, will join in conversation with historian and journalist, Jessica DuLong, for this riveting evening on the heels of the release of […]

Reading. Well before COVID-19 swept across the United States and the chairman of Tyson Foods infamously declared that the food supply chain was dangerously vulnerable, America’s meat industry was reaching […]

In 1786, Charles Wilson Peale created the most important—and most famous—museum in Revolutionary era America. A fusion of natural history and art, Peale’s Philadelphia Museum was meant to be an […]

The New York Jewish Book Festival opens with a screening of the first episode of Fleishman Is in Trouble followed by a conversation with Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman Is […]

The daylong event will touch on themes of Jewish heritage including culture and history, modern life and literature, the Holocaust, food and cookbooks, and books for kids and families. Featuring […]

Cleyvis Natera, Lan Samantha Chang and Jacquelyn Mitchard read from their work during this month's virtual salon. The theme: trauma.

Join China Institute online to have a conversation with Paul Salopek, who is now walking through China as part of his ambitious 24,000-mile Out of Eden Walk journey. Started in […]

In the new book Arthur Miller: American Witness from Yale’s Jewish Lives series, distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings a unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller, the playwright who almost singlehandedly brought twentieth century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life and concentrating […]

In their presentation “Gentleman’s Agreement: Hollywood’s Stand Against Anti-Semitism,” documentary director Cecilia Peck and film historian Claudine Stevens will bring to life the struggles and achievements of creating the groundbreaking Oscar-winning film. Seventy-five years ago, Gentleman’s Agreement bravely crossed a line to become a critically acclaimed, top-grossing film that exposed antisemitism in New York and […]

Today, the once bustling, fragrant fish market in lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport is a rebuilt retail destination with a new kind of marketing – but from its founding in […]

Launch of a new editor and author conversation series with Stephen Markley, the bestselling author of Ohio, to celebrate the launch of his new book, a masterful American epic charting […]

When Nazi plans were learned and promptly ignored by local and federal authorities in Los Angeles, a number of Jews working in Hollywood secretly funded a spy ring that operated […]

Nathanael O’Reilly, Caitlin McDonnell, Rio Cortez, Catherine Woodard and JP Howard! read from their work during this month's virtual salon.

History was made on Oct. 24, 2022 when for the first time the image of an Asian American appeared on United States currency. This distinct honor goes to Anna May […]

Budapest, 1944: Vice Consul Carl Lutz and the Swiss Legation of Budapest started the largest diplomatic operation to rescue Jews during WWII. Thanks to an ingenious system of safe-conduct papers […]

During Deeper Lectures Sahar Damoni shares the context and journey that has shaped her life and work as a Palestinian artist in Israel/Palestine, sharing key, life-changing moments that led her […]

Two multi-hyphenate artists share excerpts from their new book projects—Daniel Alexander Jones’ Love as Light and jaamil olawale kosoko’s Black Body Amnesia–discussing the process for creating as a source of […]

The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community of Krakow when the arrival of World War II changed their lives forever. When Nazis forced the family […]

Annelies and Marianne Bernstein were among the 1,700 German Jews in Berlin who survived the Holocaust by posing as non-Jews. Known as “U-boats” in the slang of their time, the sisters hid in plain sight with the help of ingenuity, grit, and luck. Join us to find out how “the Steins” used their new names […]

A revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. Animals are in trouble all over the world. Whether through the cruelties of the factory meat industry, poaching and game hunting, habitat destruction, or neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love, […]

Reading. A sweeping, unique graphic memoir about an artist’s year abroad in Paris and how it gave way to an all-encompassing love affair and crushing heartbreak as he wrestled with […]

Sarah Morgenthau interviews Andrew Meier about his book, Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty, a New York Times Editors’ Choice which follows the epic and intimate portrait of four generations of the Morgenthau family, a dynasty of power brokers and public officials with an outsize—and previously unmapped—influence shaping the American Century […]

New conversation series between fiction and non-fiction writers, in which writers discuss the ways in which they grapple with similar subject matter through different lenses, and with different perspectives. The stories and essays in this volume—a follow-up to his debut in English, Rock, Paper, Scissors—tackle major questions of modern life in and beyond Russia with […]

Examine the work of photographers who are lending their voices to defining what it means to be Indigenous today. Photojournalists Donovan Quintero (Navajo), Tailyr Irvine (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes), […]

Black History Month lecture.

A witty, provocative look inside the tumultuous marriages of five writers, illuminating the creative process as well as the role of money, power, and fame in these complex and fascinating […]

Encanto tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed […]

Black History Month lecture.

On an August night in 1923, Zhu Ziqing and Yu Pingbo, two prominent Chinese writers, took a boat ride along the famed Qinhuai River in Nanjing and each wrote an […]

David Wiener was born on May 30, 1926, in Lodz, Poland, one of Moshe Chaim and Hannah Sur Wiener’s nine children. When he was thirteen, David escaped alone from Lodz, […]

Two of the greatest Jewish voices of the past half-century appear on stage together for the first time in what promises to be a significant public intellectual event. French philosopher, […]

Louis Greenstein, Sufija Abdur-Rahman, and Sara Lippman read from their work during this month's virtual salon.

An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised […]

An intimate and empowering anthology of essays that explore the changing face of female desire in whip-smart, sensuous prose, with pieces by Tara Conklin, Camille Dungy, Melissa Febos, Lisa Taddeo, […]

Romance novels have historically been written by women, for women and about women. The genre has gone through many iterations over time, from the early romances of Jane Austen to […]

Family lore had it that author Bonnie Siegler’s grandfather Jules crossed paths with Marilyn Monroe in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954, her white dress flying up around her […]

During Deeper Lectures Sahar Damoni shares the context and journey that has shaped her life and work as a Palestinian artist in Israel/Palestine, sharing key, life-changing moments that led her […]

Why are queer communities often found at geographic peripheries like the waterfront? What is the connection between drag and the seaport? Join the Seaport Museum for a conversation with drag legend, Linda Simpson, who will answer these questions while illuminating the “herstory” of drag and sharing her first-hand account of the rise and evolution of […]

Black History Month lecture.

Many in the second generation have chosen to write about their experiences as the children of Holocaust survivors. The products of these efforts take many different forms, from personal recollections to nonfiction and academic books. This program will explore the different processes 2G writers take to create their works. Dr. Irit Felsen, a clinical psychologist […]

In the new book Arthur Miller: American Witness from Yale’s Jewish Lives series, distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings a unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller, the playwright who almost singlehandedly brought twentieth century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life and concentrating […]

In celebration of Black History Month, join Cornelius Eady, renowned poet, musician, co-founder of Cave Canem, and former Interim Director of Poets House for a reading and talk. Recently he launched Poets House’s Open House, a weekly radio program on WBAI, with co-host Patricia Spears Jones. He is the author of several celebrated collections of […]

Reading and discussion. The untold story of climate migration in the United States—the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future.

Black History Month lecture.

The Rosenstrasse Protest of 1943 was held against the incarceration and potential deportation of roughly 2,000 people who were arrested by the Gestapo on February 27, 1943. With their loved […]

Innovations rarely come from “experts.” When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is […]

YA launch with Lizzy Mason. In a world that feels distorted by celebrity and the manipulations of social media and public opinion, Natalie and Carter need something real to hold […]

Join historian and author Claire Bellerjeau as she introduces Elizabeth, or Liss. Enslaved on Long Island, Liss showed great agency when she risked everything to escape with a British commander […]

Set in Civil Rights–era Harlem, this novel features shady cops and local gangsters in an entertaining and spellbinding way. Join NYPL staff for a moderated discussion.

Reading. A Bustle, LitHub, Debutiful, and NYLON Most Anticipated Book of 2023. A magnetic and unforgettable story of desire and its complexities, and a powerful reckoning with memory, loss, and […]

Géraldine Schwarz’s riveting account of her German and French grandparents’ lives during World War II is an urgent warning against forgetting the lessons of history in the dangerous rise of […]

In this special Saturday afternoon lecture, Julie Flavell will present her book The Howe Dynasty, the first biography of a British "First Family." The Howe family had as much at […]

Women's History Month lecture.

Lecture.

Joint book launch. From Sophie Ward, the Booker Prize-longlisted author of Love and Other Thought Experiments, comes a masterful and gripping thriller about truth, silence, and the weight of the […]

An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, written by Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen, is a sumptuous book on an era – roughly from the […]

For this month's Non-Fiction/Fiction conversation series Join Sarah Schulman and K.M. Soehnlein in commemorating the 30-year anniversary of ACT UP.

John Sibley Williams, Barbara Graham, and Sergio Troncoso read from their work during this month's virtual salon.

With its gleaming shopping centers and refurbished row houses, today’s Harlem bears little resemblance to the neighborhood of the midcentury urban crisis. In The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle over Harlem, first published in 2017 by Harvard University Press, Brian D. Goldstein traces Harlem’s Second Renaissance to a surprising source: the radical […]

In this lecture, Ken Scarlett will discuss the British Southern Strategy for conquering America and extinguishing the American Revolution. He will discuss the role of a quisling in the framing of their base strategy and how those plans were completely defeated culminating with the forced British evacuation from Charleston, South Carolina (Victory Day). Ken will […]

Brooklyn born novelist, poet, educator and international speaker, Ellease Ebele N. Oseye, whom Maya Angelou described as "a seer of the interior landscape," has been teaching literature of African peoples […]

In commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the American war in Iraq, join us for an informal and open discussion about the war through political cartoons. In addition, we can […]

In commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the American war in Iraq, join us for an informal and open discussion about the war through political cartoons. In addition, we can […]

Reading and discussion. A young woman finds herself in the crosshairs of powerful and very dangerous enemies when she travels to Cairo to uncover the truth about her brother’s mysterious […]

The Sassoons, known as “the Rothschilds of the East,” were one of the richest families in the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Baghdadi Jewish family built a […]

In this program, poet David Mills will read from and reflect upon the research behind his poetry collection, Boneyarn, a book of poems about slavery in New York City. For […]