Past Events

Join us at the GBH Studios at the Boston Public Library for a night of NOVA science trivia! Get ready for creative categories and exciting prizes as we test your knowledge, from the depths of the universe to the history of science.

This month we will be quizzing you on the secrets of the forest, the history of pseudoscience and more!

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Limited seating is available on a first come, first serve basis. If you require a seat, we encourage you to arrive before the start time of this event.

Anne Berest’s first novel to appear in English, The Postcard, was a national bestseller, a Library Journal, NPR, and TIME Best Book of the Year, a Vogue Most Anticipated Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Goncourt Prize in France. It was described as “stunning” by Leslie Camhi in The New Yorker, as a “powerful literary work” by Julie Orringer in The New York Times Book Review, and as “intimate, profound, essential” in ELLE magazine. With her sister Claire Berest, she is also the author of Gabriële, a critically acclaimed, best-selling “true novel” based on the life of her great-grandmother Gabriële Buffet-Picabia, wife of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp’s lover and muse, a leader of the French Resistance, and an art critic. Berest lives in Paris with her family.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Fiction Days Series.

The Lowell Humanities Series is sponsored by the Lowell Institute, Boston College's Institute for the Liberal Arts, and the Provost's Office.

Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels, including Good in Bed, Mrs. Everything, The Breakaway, and In Her Shoes which was made into a major motion picture. Her newest book, The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, releases on April 8, 2025. Be among the first to hear all about this highly anticipated new book, just weeks after it hits the shelves.

Hear directly from Jennifer during this unforgettable evening. She’ll take you behind the scenes of her extraordinary career, giving you an exclusive peek into her creative process, and so much more! This event is one you absolutely won’t want to miss!

This event offers two ticket options:

• Attend the event $0
• Attend the event + receive a SIGNED copy of The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits + GBH membership $60 

Please note that books will be shipped out following the event.


Attending tonight's event and can't find the Zoom link? Here it is: https://wgbh.zoom.us/j/94317329358?pwd=eKcS1RNiUcXxiKcVhM8ZmpNxBt8zrE.1

Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns came to Concord Carlisle High School during an April, 2025 tour through Massachusetts, that coincided with the 250th anniversary of "the shot heard 'round the world" and the start of America's Revolutionary War. In the high school theater, he introduced a film clip from his upcoming documentary, The American Revolution, highlighting the tense and pivotal battles of Lexington and Concord that ignited the war. Following the screening, GBH News Features Editor Jennifer Moore moderated a panel discussion with Ken Burns, co-director Sarah Botstein, and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson to explore the themes of courage, complexity, and the essential role of education in self-governance. The conversation connects past and present, settles and old Lexington-Concord score, and examines how the founding ideals of the Revolution still challenge and guide us today.

SOLD OUT

Parking for ticket holders to this SOLD OUT event can be found at the nearby Westland garage  and Church garage .


Join Ken Burns, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and GBH at Symphony Hall to preview his new film, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. The event will feature musical performances, selections from the documentary, and a behind-the-scenes conversation with Burns, his co-director Sarah Botstein, and three historians featured in the film: Vincent Brown, Philip Deloria and Maya Jasanoff.  The music, curated by Grammy Award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman, will be performed by Gandelsman and Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens along with other instrumentalists, drawing on the soundtrack for THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and the historical backdrop of key moments and themes depicted in the series. The six-part, 12-hour documentary series, directed by Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, premieres on November 16, 2025 on GBH and explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe. An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the fight for independence and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of characters from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen, Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans and more. 

The six-part, 12-hour documentary series, directed by Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, premieres on November 16, 2025 on GBH and explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence.

Join Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University, Brandeis University Press, and  Revolutionary Spaces for a conversation about Boston’s historical architecture—an essential part of the city’s enduring beauty and character. 'Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them' (Brandeis University Press) is the first book to dive into the city’s fifty oldest buildings.

City Archaeologist Joseph Bagley’s narrative introduces readers to Boston’s early history through maps, photographs, and an overview of the city’s historic preservation movement. As Boston approaches its four-hundredth anniversary, don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about our historic city.

Moderated by Robert J. Allison, Professor of History at Suffolk University.

President Trump has spent years demonizing the press, popularizing the concept of “fake news” and branding journalists the “enemy of the people”. But targeting the free press is only one of the democratic institutions that Trump has gone after since taking office for his second term.

The Trump administration’s flagrant disregard for civil rights has manifest itself in the deportation, arrest and imprisonment of immigrants, foreign students and random tourists in detainment facilities “illegally”, according to Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch. Those who oppose Trump are liable to become the next subject of attack, and this includes the lawyers who have challenged his actions in court. Trump also views academic centers of learning as a threat because they encourage independent and critical thinking; he has already punished Ivy league universities like Columbia and Harvard under the guise of anti-semitism, and now has turned his sights on institutions like the Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum network, with plans to reshape it, and eliminate “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology”.

Cambridge Forum considers how far ordinary Americans are willing to go, to acquiesce or protest these developments in Demonizing the Truth. The guest speakers are David Enrich, business investigations editor for NYT and author of a new book 'MURDERING THE TRUTH: Fear, the First Amendment, & A Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.'

Berna Leon, a Spanish teaching assistant at Harvard's School of Government wrote an op-ed for The Guardian entitled “This Op-Ed could lead me to being deported from the U.S.”

Jesse Hagopian is a Seattle educator, the director of the Zinn Education Project’s Teaching for Black Lives Campaign, and the author of the book TEACH TRUTH: THE ATTACK ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ANTIRACIST EDUCATION.

Farayi Malek has traveled the world through music as a Grammy-nominated vocalist with Danilo Perez’ Global Messengers; and now musically, she’s going back to her own roots. From the American folk music and hymns of her childhood, to the blues and jazz she studied, Farayi brings all of the diverse sounds and experiences of her life into resonant songs that allow her effortless vocals to shine. The Salt Lick Incubator award-winner released her debut EP on March 27th, 2025. This concert will feature music from her EP as well as Americana arrangements of her favorite spirituals and jazz standards, which as she says, are all rooted in the blues.

Preeminent scholars Serena Zabin, Carleton College, and Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut Emeritus convene in Concord where 250 years ago, the "shot heard round the world" ignited the American Revolution. Joined in conversation by Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College, the scholars discuss New England society's challenges and the epochal day of April 19, 1775, when an outbreak of fighting led to the formation of a republic.

1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution is co-hosted by The Concord Museum, the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Note

Join a dynamic panel of top journalists as they dive into a spirited discussion on the impact of Donald Trump’s policies on the Jewish community. From Israel and antisemitism to core American Jewish values, this thought-provoking conversation will examine the shifting political landscape and how Trump’s presidency has shaped, challenged, or reinforced Jewish interests.

Are his policies ultimately beneficial, harmful, or somewhere in between? Expect candid insights, compelling arguments, and a lively exchange of perspectives.