Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies

Brook Farm Institute

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Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies is an independent education and research institute based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We offer graduate-style seminars in the humanities and social sciences led by scholars with terminal degrees in their fields. Join us in person in the Boston area — or online from anywhere in the world.

Portrait of Fernando Pessoa (1914), digitally recolored

Pessoa: The Book of Disquiet (In Person)

Isabel Sobral Campos

Sep 9 — Sep 30, 2026

Wednesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Portrait of Fernando Pessoa (1914), digitally recolored

Pessoa: The Book of Disquiet

Isabel Sobral Campos

Sep 13 — Oct 4, 2026

Sundays, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET

Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait with Hand on the Forehead, 1910, etching and drypoint, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

God’s Guilt: Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Sep 14 — Oct 5, 2026

Mondays, 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM ET

Andrew Shiva. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (detail). Photograph. Wikimedia Commons.

Thinking Palestine (In Person)

Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Sep 15 — Oct 6, 2026

Tuesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Piet Mondrian, Composition C (No. III), with Red, Yellow and Blue, 1935, oil on canvas, 56 × 52.2 cm, Tate, London.

Borders and Boundaries

Sep 16 — Oct 7, 2026

Wednesdays, 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM ET

Andrew Shiva. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem (detail). Photograph. Wikimedia Commons.

Thinking Palestine

Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Sep 17 — Oct 8, 2026

Thursdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (Клином красным бей белых), 1919, lithograph, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

The Revolutionary Paradox: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Struggle for Recognition

Oct 1 — Oct 22, 2026

Thursdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Santa Muerte

Making the Cartel

Emilio Porras Vergara

Oct 5 — Nov 2, 2026

Mondays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements (1887), Plate 160

Michel Foucault: Biopower and Race

Oct 6 — Oct 27, 2026

Tuesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

William Blake, Albion Rose (also known as Glad Day), ca. 1793, color-printed line engraving with hand-coloring, 27.2 × 20.2 cm, British Museum, London.

Romanticism and Revolution

Oct 6 — Oct 27, 2026

Tuesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Ernő Goldfinger, Design for the 'London Women's Parliament' Exhibition, Boots, Piccadilly Circus, London, 1943, drawing, ink, RIBA Collections, Royal Institute of British Architects, London.

Karl Polanyi and The Great Transformation

Oct 19 — Nov 9, 2026

Mondays, 6:30 PM — 9:30 PM ET

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych (detail), 1490–1500, oil and grisaille on oak panel, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Oct 28 — Nov 18, 2026

Wednesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM EST

Audre Lorde: Poetry, Feminism, Mythography — seminar at Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies

Audre Lorde: Poetry, Feminism, Mythography

Nov 1 — Nov 22, 2026

Sundays, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET

Detail from the last extant portrait photograph of Franz Kafka (1923)

Deranged Cosmos: Kafka’s Stories

Nov 2 — Nov 23, 2026

Mondays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

The Fire and the Sun: Plato’s Republic (In Person) — seminar at Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies

The Fire and the Sun: Plato’s Republic (In Person)

Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Nov 3 — Dec 1, 2026

Tuesdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

The Fire and the Sun: Plato’s Republic (In Person) — seminar at Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies

The Fire and the Sun: Plato’s Republic

Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Nov 5 — Dec 3, 2026

Thursdays, 6:30 PM—9:30 PM ET

Adriaen van Utrecht, Vanitas – Still Life with Bouquet and Skull, c. 1642, oil on canvas, private collection.

Benjamin’s Baudelaire: Commodity, Experience, Shock

Isabel Sobral Campos

Nov 29 — Dec 20, 2026

Sundays, 2:00 PM—5:00 PM ET

Exekias, Achilles slaying Penthesilea, black-figure amphora, c. 530–525 BCE, British Museum, London.

Jan 10 — Jan 31, 2027

Sundays, 2:00 PM—5:00 PM ET

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