Signature Event Archive

Search the Signature Event Archive to discover past Library events. Watch videos, hear speaker interviews, and listen to audio recordings of previous presentations. Search by keyword (event title, subject, or presenter name), location or by date range.

Video

Audio

Cinema and Kansas City

Mitch Brian, Kaite Stover

See a movie scene dominated by skyscrapers and speeding taxis, and you know in an instant that you’re in New York. For Los Angeles, it’s freeways and beaches. New Orleans evokes a Big Easy vibe.

And Kansas City? What, or who, defines it on the big screen?

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Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 6:30pm

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Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Inger Burnett-Zeigler, Kaite Stover

Inger Burnett-Zeigler counts herself among the many today who wear the badge of strong Black woman with honor. All too often, the esteemed Northwestern University clinical psychologist says, their toughness is tied to acquaintance with suffering.

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Monday, July 26, 2021 - 6:30pm

Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

Adrian Miller

Missouri Valley Sundays

The U.S. barbecue capitals of Memphis, Texas, the Carolinas and, of course, Kansas City bring unique techniques, flavors, and traditions to slow-smoking meats. Each claims to produce the best ’cue in the country, and hundreds of teams compete regionally and nationally for preeminence.

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Sunday, July 25, 2021 - 3:00pm

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Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

2021 Off the Wall Film Series: Movies Under the monStars

The Gremlins are up for some midnight madness in New York City in this sequel. Having moved to the Big Apple after their Kingston Falls fallout, Billy and Kate (Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates) work in a techo-marvel skyscraper, complete with a shady genetics lab and an after-hours snack bar, which turns out to be a recipe for familiar trouble. Just add water for Mogwai mayhem. Seating begins: 8 p.m. • Program: 8:45 p.m.

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Friday, July 23, 2021 - 8:45pm

Central Library

The Day the World Stops Shopping

J.B. MacKinnon, Kaite Stover

The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered a simple truth about our buying habits: We’re capable of reining in our vanity and impulse shopping, our compulsion to keep up with others. We can consume smarter, and less.

For the sake of our resource-depleted planet, J.B. MacKinnon says we must.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - 6:30pm

Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal

George Packer

***PROGRAM CANCELED***

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Wednesday, June 30, 2021 - 6:30pm

Event Canceled

Arne Duncan: The State of Education in America

Arne Duncan, John Herron

As America’s education system approaches a pivotal new school year, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sits down with Library Executive Director John Herron to assess its pandemic-related stresses and other issues. How far have students fallen behind, and how do they catch up? What modifications worked and should be retained? How do we navigate the partisan political climate?

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Tuesday, June 29, 2021 - 6:30pm

On Juneteenth

Annette Gordon-Reed

In an online KC Library program, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed discusses her new book On Juneteenth, in which she weaves American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir into a series of essays on our “long road” to the effective end of slavery on June 19, 1865.

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Monday, June 28, 2021 - 6:30pm

Space Jam (1996)

2021 Off the Wall Film Series: Movies Under the monStars

Before LeBron James, Michael Jordan was king of the cosmic cartoon court, taking on the malicious Monstars with his Tune Squad of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the ever-enthusiastic Bill Murray. The outcome of this epic game of intergalactic basketball determines the fate of the animated Looney Tunes characters. Seating begins: 8 p.m. • Program: 8:45 p.m.

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