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History Lessons NYC

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Discover a world of history classes in NYC that will transport you back in time and deepen your understanding of the past. From ancient civilizations to modern events, explore fascinating topics and gain valuable insights to enrich your knowledge and perspective.

2 classes have spots left

Pizzazz with Gary Gulman

Caveat @ 21-A Clinton St, New York, NY

Comedian Gary Gulman (HBO, Comedy Central) performs an extended set of new material in preparation for his next special, and invites a few of his favorite local and visiting comedians to make you laugh. This is a mixed seated/standing venue. Seats are first-come, first-served.

(25) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$24.05
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Science 101: Our Gayest Show Ever

Caveat @ 21-A Clinton St, New York, NY

Experience the most entertaining and unconventional science class at Caveat, where real scientists and hilarious hosts bring you games, debates, and art challenges to keep you engaged and entertained. Attendance is the key to success in this one-of-a-kind "class" that will leave you in awe and laughter.

(25) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$29.30
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Nietzsche’s Critique of Morality

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 323 Dean St, New York, NY

This course will consider these questions by examining Nietzsche’s distinctive and radical conception of philosophy and its history, as well as his views on the nature and value of knowledge and truth. We will begin by considering how Nietzsche’s attack on popular morality and philosophical moral theory go hand in hand with bold theses in metaphysics and epistemology. We will ask: How should we understand the difference between a morality and...

(29) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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Philosophy of History

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 68 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY

Does history have a direction, a purpose, or an end goal? Can we deduce general historical patterns from studying the past? Is it naïve to hope and work for a better future? From the Enlightenment to the twenty-first century, liberal, Marxist, positivist, and post-structuralist thinkers have offered radically different responses to these fundamental questions related to the philosophy of history. This course will survey these attempts to grapple...

(29) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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Revolutionary Rumpus: an Introduction to Jazz

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 68 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY

Jazz is supposedly the “quintessential” American art form. But what does that mean—about jazz (as a form and artifact), on the one hand, and America, on the other? Rooted in the blues and the ragtime rhythms of Jim Crow-era New Orleans, jazz was born in the synthesis of Black folk music with European classical and even burgeoning American popular musics, creating an entirely new idiom. It flourished and transformed as it traveled north with...

(29) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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Imagining Utopia: Politics, Planning

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 68 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY

Imagining Utopia: Politics, Planning, and the (Im)Possible Dystopias abound in the contemporary landscape—in literature, on screen, in our diagnoses of the present. From the zombie apocalypse to planetary catastrophe to nightmarish visions of gender disciplining, dystopia is today a particularly salient category, a popular outlet for imaginations of (im)possible political futures. But the utopian genre, older by over a century, appears to have...

(29) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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Let's Get Ethical

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Life is full of complicated ethical questions: Should doping be permitted in sports? What, if anything, do we owe to the incarcerated? Are reality TV shows ethical? Can we program robot to be moral beings? What does the future of reproduction hold, and will men be able to have babies? Topic:  Public Health & Pop Culture  Public health messages have always been integrated into American pop culture. From blues songs about meningitis...

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Queens Then and Now

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

The borough of Queens has seen many historical and geographical changes throughout its illustrious history. Marshlands, woods, and farms gave way to factories, thriving communities, and the nation's premier arterial highway system.  Queens: Then & Now offers a rare historical look at New York City's largest borough, featuring many never-before-seen images that document the amazing changes it has experienced since it became a part of the...

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Great Decisions 2020

92nd Street Y @ 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY

Join the longest-running informal foreign affairs discussion program in the country. Increase your awareness and understanding of timely, thought-provoking foreign policy issues involving the US. Each week another thematic/geographic issue is placed in its historical context. Topics are: Climate Change and the Global Order India and Pakistan Red Sea Security Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking U.S. Relations with the Northern Triangle China's...

(1061) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules
$250

8 sessions

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History of Staten Island

Wagner College Lifelong Learning @ 1 Campus Rd, Staten Island, NY

Early Life: From the Woodland Indians to the American Revolution! An exploration of the Native Americans who inhabited Staten Island and the archeological digs that have provided us with facts on the Lenape and their lives, will be followed by a discussion on the European settlers who changed everything. With the arrival of these colonizers enslaved persons were forced onto the island. We will consider this, as well as who the early settlers were...

(5) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules
$100

4 sessions

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From Horsecars to Helicopters: A History of NYC Transit

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

By some estimates, for every New Yorker you see walking around on the streets, there’s one New Yorker underground, riding the train. That’s right - 1/2 of New York’s population is on some form of public transportation at any given moment. This miraculous statistic means that the city we know truly couldn’t exist without its subways, buses, and taxis, but how did all this heavy, stinky, old fashioned infrastructure get built? This class covers...

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Thwarted Loves of New York City History

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Join us on Valentine's Day for some of the most memorable tales of "love gone wrong" from New York City history. There will be tales of tragic circus stars, Hollywood actors, famous architects, gold diggers, murder, and ghosts, all packaged into a Valentine's afternoon that aims to make you laugh, cry, and groan. 

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

New York’s Holiday History

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Full Course Name: New York’s Holiday History from George Washington to Andy Warhol In other parts of the world, Santa Claus might be coming to town, but he’s from this town! Saint Nick is the Patron Saint of New York City, and Santa as we know him is a hometown boy. In this look at New York’s holiday history, we’ll find out which of New York’s early 19th century artists and writers were the first to depict the modern Santa Claus, see which...

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Ghosts of the Boroughs

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Boroughs of the Dead Tour Guide Marie Carter is thrilled to present “Ghosts of the Boroughs”. In this eerie, illustrated lecture you will learn about the haunted mansions of the boroughs, a ghostly monastery, a creepy story involving murder and a spooky doll, former insane asylums, grisly murders, and many other ghastly NYC stories!  And you will learn about the ghosts that haunt your own backyard in Astoria.

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

A History of Ghost Hunting

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Ghost hunting has been part of our fictional and historic narratives since the Ancient Greeks. This lecture will take you on a historical paranormal investigation starting with Homer’s The Odyssey to the Middle Ages to 19 th century spiritualism to present day ghost hunting techniques.  The second half of the lecture will involve an interview/discussion with paranormal investigator, Vinny Carbone, who currently conducts...

(252) All levels 16 and older
No upcoming schedules

The Women Rebel: Women Who Shook New York

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

Imagine you are at a party with the anarchist Emma Goldman, the dancer Isadora Duncan and the women’s health pioneer Margaret Sanger. Two things are probably true: you are at Mabel Dodge’s celebrated Wednesday Night Salon, and Marcel Duchamp is swinging from the chandelier. When Dodge began her salon in 1912, she claimed, “every thinking person nowadays is in revolt against something.” At the time, Radical Politics thrived on the Lower East...

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

The Mysterious History of Hart Island

Q.E.D. @ 27-16 23rd Ave, Astoria, NY

For the most part if you end up on Hart Island in New York City, it is because things have gone terribly wrong. In the past, Hart Island has variously been used as a tuberculosis sanatorium, a Union Civil War Camp, a women’s insane asylum, and a boys’ reformatory. It was also used to launch missiles during the Cold War in the sixties from the Nike Missile Site, and it housed a rehab facility called Phoenix House in the sixties and seventies....

(252) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Team Human: Find the Others

92nd Street Y @ 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY

There’s an anti-human agenda embedded in our markets and technologies, which has turned them from means of human connection into ones of isolation and repression. Our corporations and the culture they create glorify individualism at the expense of cooperation, threatening the sustainability not just of our economy but our species. In this discussion, Douglas Rushkoff will reveal this agenda at work and invite us to remake society toward human...

(1061) All levels 18 and older
No upcoming schedules

Politics of the City: Plato’s Republic

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 247 West 37th St, New York, NY

From the ancient world to contemporary debates, the work of Plato is foundational in Western philosophy. As Alfred North Whitehead once quipped, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” In particular, Plato’s Republicremains a vital touchstone for contemporary political and moral philosophers  trying to understand everything from the very...

(29) All levels 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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Playing to Win: an Introduction to Game Theory

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research @ 247 West 37th St, New York, NY

From zero-sum games and the “prisoner’s dilemma” to rational actors and the Nash equilibrium, game theory has grown from a bold conjecture into a deeply influential mode of analysis in political science, economics, psychology, business, mathematics, and even military strategy. Based on a theory of simple card games developed by John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, game theory seeks to use these game situations to model human, computer, and...

(29) Beginner 21 and older
No upcoming schedules
$315

4 sessions

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