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Events

Boston Review hosts both virtual and in-person events with leading scholars, writers, and activists. Recent speakers have included Samuel Moyn, Becca Rothfeld, Jefferson Cowie, Martha Nussbaum, Noam Chomsky, Robin D. G. Kelley, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Senator Ed Markey.

All virtual events are recorded and uploaded to our YouTube account here. Links to previous events can also be found below.

To get alerts about upcoming events,  sign up for our newsletter.

Upcoming Events

  • Boston Book Festival
    Boston Review will be at Booth 26, in Copley Square. We’ll be selling memberships, single issues, and merch!
    Saturday, October 26, 10am-5pm | Learn more

Past Events

  • Reclaiming Freedom Virtual Launch
    Aziz Rana, Elisabeth R. Anker, Mark Paul, and William Clare Roberts
    Cohosted with Haymarket Books
    January 9, 2024 | Recording
  • Issue Launch at Harvard Book Store: Aziz Rana with Brandon M. Terry
    Friday, January 26 | Learn more
  • A New Politics of Freedom
    Aziz Rana in conversation with Jefferson Cowie
    January 30, 2024 | Recording
  • Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor at Harvard Book Store
    Moderated by Aziz Rana
    March 13, 2024 | Recording
  • Working Class Democracy and the Question of Palestine
    Robin D. G. Kelley delivers the 13th Annual Robert Fitch Memorial Lecture at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY.
    March 18, 2024 | Recording
  • Issue Launch: The New Blue Divide
    Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson with Lily Geismer
    April 1, 2024 | Recording
  • Demystifying Metaracism
    Tricia Rose with Robin D. G. Kelley
    Cohosted with The Philosopher
    April 2, 2024 | Recording
  • Becca Rothfeld at Harvard Book Store
    Moderated by James Wood
    Boston Review contributing editor Becca Rothfeld discusses her new book All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess.
    April 3, 2024 | Recording
  • Demystifying Metaracism
    Tricia Rose with Robin D. G. Kelley
    Cohosted with The Philosopher
    April 2, 2024 | Recording
  • With Power Comes Responsibility
    Maeve McKeown with Katrina Forrester
    Cohosted with The Philosopher
    April 29, 2024 | Recording
  • Liberalism as a Way of Life
    Alexandre Lefebvre with Helena Rosenblatt
    Cohosted with The Philosopher
    June 10, 2024 | Recording
  • Climate, State, and Utopia
    Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and Thea Riofrancos
    July 11, 2024 | Recording
  • What Is the State For? Virtual Launch with Haymarket Books
    Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, and Tara Raghuveer.
    Cohosted with Haymarket Books
    July 24, 2024 | Recording
  • Brookyn Book Festival Literary Marketplace
    September 29, 2024
  • A Year of War: Paths to a Political Settlement in Israel and Palestine
    Helena Cobban, Alon-Lee Green, Leila Farsakh, and Raja Shehadeh. Moderated by Barnett Rubin.

    October 10, 2024 | Recording

  • What Happened to Liberalism?
    Samuel Moyn in conversation with Becca Rothfeld
    Series: Philosophy Today
    November 14, 2023 | Recording

  • Democracy in African American Political Thought
    Melvin Rogers in conversation with Neil Roberts
    Series: Philosophy Today
    October 17, 2023 | Recording

  • The Theory and Practice of Solidarity
    Mie Inouye in conversation with Daniel Martinez HoSang
    *Co-hosted with Haymarket Books
    September 19, 2023 |  Recording

  • A Theory of Cooperation
    Bernard Harcourt in conversation with Amna Akbar
    Series: Philosophy Today
    May 22, 2023 | Recording

  • What’s Wrong with Equality of Opportunity
    Christine Sypnowich in conversation with Ben Burgis
    Series: Philosophy Today
    May 9, 2023 | Recording

  • Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America
    Robin D. G. Kelley with Whiteout authors Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg
    April 12, 2023 | Recording

  • The Political Theory of Algorithms
    Josh Simons in conversation with Lily Hu 
    Series: Philosophy Today
    March 28, 2023 | Recording

  • Justice for Animals:
    Martha Nussbaum with Jeremy Bendik-Keymer
    Series: Philosophy Today
    December 12, 2022 | Recording

  • Future-Proof Science:
    Peter Vickers with Jana Bacevic
    Series: Philosophy Today
    November 21, 2022 | Recording

  • Black Existential Freedom:
    Nathalie Etoke with Lewis Gordon
    Series: Philosophy Today
    November 14, 2022 | Recording

  • Why Does the State Care About Your Gender?:
    Paisley Currah with Robin Dembroff
    Series: Philosophy Today
    October 10, 2022 | Recording

  • How Philosophy Helps Us Find Our Way:
    Kieran Setiya with Anil Gomes
    Series: Philosophy Today
    October 3, 2022 | Recording

  • The Politics of Pleasure:
    Kate Soper with Lynne Segal
    Series: Philosophy Today
    September 20, 2022 | Recording

  • The Racial Capitalism of Care: A Conversation on Inequities in Medicine and Child Welfare
    Ruha Benjamin with Dorothy Robert and Drs. Michelle Morse and Bram Wispelwey
    April 27, 2022 | Recording

  • Celebrating Boston Review’s Annual Arts Anthology, Repair
    March 31, 2022 | Recording

  • Prospects for Peace and Justice in Israel and Palestine
    Sally Abed, Noam Chomsky, Alon-lee Green, Congressman Jim McGovern, and Dr. James Zogby
    Co-hosted with Standing Together
    December 9, 2021 | Recording

  • Race & Justice: The Philosophy of Charles W. Mills
    A roundtable with Joshua Cohen, Derrick Darby, Robert Gooding-Williams, Desmond Jagmohan, Falguni Sheth, and Tommie Shelby
    November 11, 2021 | Recording

  • Read Until You Understand: The Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
    Sonia Sanchez, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Elleza Kelley
    October 25, 2021 | Recording

  • AI for Justice
    Daron Acemoglu, Beth Noveck, Rob Reich, and Annette Zimmermann
    September 28, 2021

  • Celebrating Binyavanga Wainaina’s Fiction
    Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, Aruni Kashyap, Neo Sinoxolo Musangi, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Sigrid Rausing, with Aimar Arriola, Adam McGee, Ed Pavlić, Achal Prabhala, and Giulia Tognon
    April 14, 2021 | Recording

  • Sonia Sanchez, Tyehimba Jess, Domenica Ruta, Cheswayo Mphanza, Yeoh Jo-Ann, with Adam McGee, Ed Pavlić and Ivelisse Rodriguez
    March 11, 2021 | Recording
  • Where Do We Go From Here: A Fundraiser for Black Lives

    Elizabeth Hinton, Robin D. G. Kelley, Brandon Terry, Cornel West, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
    July 12, 2020 | Recording
  • The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis

    September 4, 2018 | Recording

  • Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Is It Legal? Is It Constitutional? Is It Just?

    Saturday, November 4, 2017 | 9:00 a.m. | Recording
    Harvard Science Center, Hall C

    Nuclear weapons strategy in the United States is designed around “presidential first use,” an arrangement that enables one man, the president, to kill and maim many millions of people in a single afternoon. What legal or philosophical principle differentiates the moral harm or moral wrong that would be attributed to a terrorist, non-state actor or hacker who delivered a nuclear weapon from a presidential launch of a nuclear weapon? The conference will bring together international and constitutional scholars and statesmen to examine the nature of presidential first use in the United States, as well as parallel arrangements in the other eight nuclear states.

  • Bernie Sanders Discusses Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In

    Friday, March 31, 2017
    Kresge Auditorium, MIT | Recording

    At an event presented by Harvard Book Store, Boston Review, and the MIT Department of Political Science, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will discuss his experiences as a presidential candidate and his thoughts about the political process. His talk will be based in part on the ideas presented in his latest book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. As a part of the evening’s presentation, Senator Sanders will be joined on-stage for a Q&A moderated by Archon Fung, Academic Dean and Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at the Harvard Kennedy School.

  • Poems for Political Disaster: An Evening of Readings from a Boston Review Chapbook

    Monday, January 30, 2017 | 6:30 p.m. | Recording
    Cambridge Public Library

    Harvard Book Store and Boston Review present readings by Lucie Brock-Broido, Peter Gizzi, Jorie Graham, Ricardo Maldonado, Nathan Xavier Osorio, Monica Youn, and more from Poems for Political Disaster, a new Boston Review chapbook featuring both new poems and selections from our archive that record, refract, subvert, or otherwise respond to political trauma, catastrophe, or terror—both here at home and abroad. The evening will be hosted by Boston Review poetry editor B.K. Fischer.

  • Greater Boston WRITERS RESIST

    Sunday, January 15, 2017 | 1:30-4:30 p.m.
    Rabb Hall, Boston Public Library

    Greater Boston Writers Resist will feature readings and performances by authors, artists, young writers, and special guests. In resistance to the divisive and increasingly hostile political climate, this event will re-affirm the unifying democratic pillars now under threat, such as freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, equality, and diversity.

    Participants in the program include Rob Arnold, Jabari Asim, Liana Asim, James Carroll, Martha Collins, Chris Cooper, Laura van den Berg, Danielle Legros Georges, Jennifer Haigh, Rachel Kadish, Helen Elaine Lee, Giles Li, Jennifer De Leon, Marianne Leone, Pablo Medina, Alma Richeh, Paul Yoon, young writers from the Greater Boston area, and special guests.

    Greater Boston Writers Resist is independently organized and co-sponsored by Boston Review, The Critical Flame, PEN New England, Beacon Press, Aforementioned Productions, AGNI, Arrowsmith Press, Black Ocean, Blacksmith House Poetry Series, the Center for Arabic Culture, the City of Boston’s Office of New Bostonians and the Office of the Poet Laureate, CONSEQUENCE Magazine, the Dominican Development Center, the Greater Boston Latino Network, Grub Street, Harvard Bookstore, Harvard Review, Louder than a Bomb, Mass LEAP, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, Memorious, Ploughshares, The Poets’ Theater, PoemWorks, Post Road, Salamander, and the UMASS-Boston Creative Writing MFA.

  • Election Forum: Whose Vote Matters
    Tuesday, November 1, 2016 | 5:30-7:00 p.m.
    Kirsch Auditorium MIT 32-123

    Join Boston Review as well as the MIT Department of Political Science, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science, and the Class of 1971 Kent State Memorial Fund for an exciting and timely forum on race, election access, and voter rights. Light refreshments will be served.

    Panelists: Charles Stewart III (MIT), Ariel White (MIT), Rahsaan Maxwell (UNC Chapel Hill)

  • No Justice, No Peace: Race and Power in America
    Monday, October 17, 2016 | 7:00-9:00 p.m. | Recording
    First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

    Please join us for a very special “Ethics in Your World” Book Series event at the Cambridge Forum featuring Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton, and Khalil Gibran Muhammad in conversation with Danielle Allen.

    Featuring a facilitated discussion with three authors who have recent publications on the complex issues of race and structural injustice, and the steps that citizens and governments can take to find practical solutions to problems such as mass incarceration, extreme poverty in disadvantaged communities, and problematic notions of black criminality.

    This Cambridge Forum event is a collaboration with Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard Book Store, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University Press, and Boston Review.

  • Danielle Allen at Harvard Book Store
    Tuesday, June 7, 2016
    Kirsch Auditorium MIT 32-123

    Join Boston Review and Harvard Book Store for an evening with Danielle Allen, Harvard professor, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and author of Boston Review‘s May/June 2016 forum, “What is Education For?” for a discussion of her new book, Education and Equality.

  • “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest Winners’ Reading
    Monday, May 9, 2016 | 8:15 p.m.
    1395 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10128

    Join 92Y and Boston Review for a reading by the winners of the “Discovery” 2016 Poetry Contest (contest details here).

  • Poetry Reading and Signing at Cambridge Public Library
    Wednesday, December 9 | 7:00 p.m.

    Join Boston Review along with Harvard Book Store at Cambridge Public Library for a poetry reading and signing featuring some of contemporary poetry’s most prominent figures.

    Poets in attendance: Lucie Brock-Broido, Mary Jo Bang, Stephanie Burt, and Major Jackson

  • Anne-Marie Slaughter at the Brattle Theatre
    Tuesday November 3 | 6:00 p.m.

    Harvard Book Store, Boston Review, and WAM!: Women, Action, and the Media join to welcome president and CEO of the New America Foundation, Anne-Marie Slaughter, for a discussion of her book, Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family, a thought-provoking examination of the struggle for equality in the workplace and the home in the 21st century.

  • Boston Review at the 2015 Boston Book Festival in Copley Square
    Saturday, October 24 | 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

    Join Boston Review at Massachusetts’ best celebration of authors, presses, and lovers of reading. October 24 is Boston Book Festival’s central event, a free street festival in Copley Square, and Boston Review will be there all day with merchandise and special BBF-exclusive deals on subscriptions.

  • Roberta Kaplan at the Brattle Theatre
    Thursday October 8, 2015 | 6:00 p.m.

    Harvard Book Store and Boston Review welcome Roberta Kaplan, joined by Eric Lander, to discuss her book, Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA.

  • Daniel Geary and Benjamin Hedin: The Moynihan Report and Civil Rights
    Friday September 18, 2015 | 3:00 p.m.

    In conversation with Eugene Rivers, Daniel Geary and Benjamin Hedin discuss their books, Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy and In Search of the Movement: The Struggle for Civil Rights Then and Now.

    This event was part of Harvard Book Store’s Friday Forum, which takes place on Friday afternoons during the academic year as a way to highlight scholarly books in a wide range of fields, with a particular focus on local scholars.

  • “‘The Lip of the Flamingo’: Poetry and the Misuse of Language”
    Thursday, February 26, | 6 p.m.
    Edison Newman Room, Houghton Library
    Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

    A poetry lecture by Timothy Donnelly as part of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series.

  • Saving Privacy
    Tuesday, November 11 | 4:30 p.m.
    McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford University.

    A forum featuring Reed Hundt, Michael Dearing, and Jennifer Granick co-sponsored by the Stanford McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society.

    Because of Edward Snowden’s remarkable public service, we know that the National Security Agency, with the cooperation of some large firms, has amassed an unprecedented database of personal information. The ostensible goal in collecting that information is to protect national security. The effect, according to Reed Hundt, is to undermine democracy.

    Hundt—chair of the Federal Communications Commission under President Clinton and early champion of the Internet—argues that the law and traditional checks on political power have not kept pace with the digital realm. How should we respond? Hundt proposes a new compact that encourages citizens to use encryption to protect their information and offers government support for technologies and legislation that enable self-protection. Moreover, the government would have to rely on tried-and-true practices of the criminal justice system, not secret backdoors, to police encrypted digital space.

  • Lessons From Market Basket
    Thursday September 25, 2014 | 6:00 p.m.
    An MIT / Boston Review Forum

    Couldn’t make it? Read our recap here.

    There is much to learn from the historic revolt of Market Basket employees and customers that saved its successful business model—featuring low prices and high quality jobs—and brought Arthur T. Demoulas back in control of the company. This MIT / Boston Review Forum brought together experts in leadership, corporate governance, finance, marketing, operations, and labor to discuss the key lessons learned and how to put them to work in teaching and practice and hear directly from people at Market Basket who made it all happen.

    We invited students, faculty, staff at MIT and sister universities and members of the public to join us and offer their ideas on what this case means for the future of American business and the education of future leaders.

  • Privacy Policy
    Monday September 22, 2014 | 7:00 p.m.
    Harvard Book Store

    Stephanie Burt, Dan Chelotti, Jorie Graham, Robert Pinsky, and Thera Webb read from their contributions to Privacy Policy: The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics.

  • Matt Taibbi and Robin Young discuss The Divide
    Thursday May 1, 2014 | 7:00 p.m.
    First Parish Church, Cambridge, MA

    Harvard Book Store and Boston Review welcome contributing editor for Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi and award-winning host of NPR’s “Here and Now” Robin Young for a discussion of Taibbi’s newest book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.

  • Senator Elizabeth Warren: A Fighting Chance
    Thursday April 24, 2014 | 7:00 p.m.
    First Parish Church, Cambridge, MA

    Harvard Book Store and Boston Review welcome Senator Elizabeth Warren for a discussion of her forthcoming memoir, A Fighting Chance..

  • AWP Conference Off-Site Reading: Amy King and Tyler Mills
    Saturday March 1, 2014 | 6:30–8:30 pm
    The Freehold Theater
    with Anomalous Press, Gold Line Press, Ricochet Editions, and Rose Metal Press

    Featuring Amy King and Tyler Mills for Boston Review; Steve Bradbury for Anomalous Press; Iver Arnegard and Cynthia Marie Hoffman for Gold Line Press; Elizabeth J. Colen, Miriam Bird Greenberg, and Harmony Holliday for Ricochet; Kim Henderson and Gregory Robinson for Rose Metal Press.

  • The Landscape Listens: the Voices of Women in American Poetry
    Thursday March 20–Friday March 21, 2014

    With Sonia Sanchez, Robert Pinsky, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jericho Brown, Marie Howe, Vijay Seshadri, Jane Shore, Henri Cole, CD Wright, Afaa Weaver, and others.

    The Poetry Society of America 2014 national series The Voices of Women in American Poetry celebrates the immense achievement of a wide range of poets, from Phillis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet to Adrienne Rich and Lucille Clifton. Distinguished contemporary poets—both male and female—will gather in five cities around the country to discuss an important female predecessor and her influence on their life and work. The series will launch with a one-and-a-half day festival in Boston, co-sponsored by Boston University as well as Boston Review, featuring readings and panel discussions by poets Sonia Sanchez, Robert Pinsky, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jericho Brown, Marie Howe, Vijay Seshadri, Jane Shore, Henri Cole, CD Wright, Afaa Weaver, and others.

  • The Uses of Black Political Thought
    Thursday, February 27, 2014
    Harvard Book Store

    A panel featuring Nick Bromell, Rev. Eugene Rivers, and Brandon M. Terry.

  • The Syria Dilemma
    Wednesday, January 15, 2014
    2021 14th St NW, Washington, DC

    Sponsored by Teaching for Change and Busboys & Poets.

    A panel including Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi.

  • Noam Chomsky: What is Anarchism?
    Monday November 18, 2013 | 5:30 p.m.
    MIT E51-115, Wong Auditorium

    Noam Chomsky, world-renowned public intellectual and MIT Professor emeritus, will discuss the reasoning behind his fearless lifelong questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. Chomsky’s anarchism is distinctly optimistic and egalitarian. It is a living, evolving tradition, situated in a historical lineage, which emphasizes the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.

    This event is based on the topic of Noam Chomsky’s new volume, On Anarchism, available from New Press. Nathan Schneider—editor of Waging Nonviolence and author of Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse—will introduce Chomsky and moderate the Q&A.

  • The Case for Climate Engineering
    David Keith, with Kenneth Oye and Stephen Van Evera
    Wednesday, October 30, 2013 | 4:30 pm
    MIT 32-155 (Stata Center), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA

    Climate engineering—which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to energy conservation. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues, is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years. But he agrees that there are large issues at stake. On October 30, Keith, Oye, and Van Evra will discuss the possibility of and obstacles to climate engineering. This event is based on the topic of David Keith’s new BR Book, A Case for Climate Engineering, available soon from MIT Press.

    This is an Ideas Matter event, a joint project of Boston Review and MIT’s Political Science Department that brings BR writers together with other experts and practitioners for substantive debate on the challenges of our times.

  • Occupy the Future
    Chris Hedges, Debra Satz, J. Phillip Thompson, Nadeem Mazen
    Thursday, December 6, 2012 | 4:30 p.m.
    MIT 26-100, Cambridge, MA

    Boston Review has closely followed the Occupy movement and we welcome both the attention it has drawn to societal problems as well as its potential to re-democratize American politics.

    On Thursday, December 6th, Debra Satz, director of the Stanford Center for Ethics in Society, leads a panel discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, MIT Professor of Urban Studies and Planning J. Phillip Thompson, and Occupy Boston participant Nadeem Mazen, on the state and future of the Occupy movement. The panel will be moderated by MIT Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy Sally Haslanger.

  • Climate Change: Science and Politics
    Dr. Kerry Emanuel, author of What We Know About Climate Change
    Wednesday, November 7, 2012 | 6:00 p.m.
    MIT Wong Auditorium (in the Tang Center)
    70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA

    Dr. Kerry Emanuel, one of America’s leading experts on climate change and severe weather, will discuss recent severe weather events, the politics of climate change, as well as his Boston Review Book, What We Know About Climate Change.

  • Islam in America
    John Bowen and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, with Christopher Lydon
    Tuesday, May 15, 2012 | 4–5:30 p.m.
    Bartos Theater, MIT E15 Atrium level
    20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA

    Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, author of Moving the Mountain, and Professor John Bowen, author of the new Boston Review Book Blaming Islam, join Boston Review and the MIT Political Science Department for a discussion of the state of Islam in the United States, moderated by Christopher Lydon.

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This is not a paywall.

Boston Review is independent and nonprofit. All of our web content is free to read for everyone.

Please consider making a donation our becoming a member to support our work.