The Brecht Forum was an independent
Marxist educational and cultural center in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, named after German writer
Bertolt Brecht. Throughout the years, the Forum offered a wide-ranging program of classes, public lectures and seminars, art exhibitions, performances, popular education workshops, and language classes.
[http://brechtforum.org/nyms .]
The Brecht Forum closed in 2014. Many of the teachers and activists from the Forum have continued offering classes and discussions through the Marxist Education Project, which was founded following the Forum's closure and operates out of the Brooklyn Commons in the
Boerum Hill neighborhood.
History
The Brecht Forum was founded in 1975, as the New York Marxist School by a collective of civil rights, community, labor, and student activists.
It was named after Bertolt Brecht, who once argued that those who fight for Communism must be able to both fight and renounce fighting.
Brecht Forum has been described as one of the governing directorate of the subculture that emerged out of New York's complex Marxist underworld.
In 2004, it moved to
Westbeth, 451 West St.,
New York, NY, formerly Serge’s Gym where its program also included the
Theater of the Oppressed
The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1970s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theoris ...
Laboratory, the Institute for Popular Education, and Neues Kabarett series. In 2012, it moved to the Commons in Brooklyn at 338 Atlantic Avenue, where its successor organization, the Marxist Education Project, now hosts many events each year. The Brecht Forum's website is being maintained as an archive at brechtforum.net. The site contains videos and audio recordings of programs over its close to 40-year history. Additional archival material is gradually being digitized and added to the site.
At the Brecht Forum, people communicate, meet, and display their art.
Financial crisis discussion
On October 6, 2008, a discussion panel “An Offer We Can’t Refuse?” was held, on the
financial crisis
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...
included
Naomi Klein
Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...
,
Arun Gupta,
Frances Fox Piven
Frances Fox Piven (born October 10, 1932) is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. ,
William Greider, and
Doug Henwood. In the discussion moderated by
Christopher Hayes, the panel of progressive intellectuals and activists proposed radical solutions in response to the crisis.
References
External links
The Marxist Education Project website*
Brecht Forum Archive'
Brecht Forum Introduction video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brecht Forum
Alternative education
Socialist organizations in the United States
Theatre in the United States
Theatrical genres
Arts organizations based in New York City
Culture of New York City
Organizations based in Brooklyn
Organizations established in 1975
1975 establishments in New York City