Courses - Online & in London
Thousands of online and in-person courses available to book online now!
Whether you want to try something new, revive your passion, or take your skills to the next level; we have a huge range of courses for you to explore. Discover Languages, Art & Design, Drama, Music & Dance, Technology & Business, Writing, British Sign Language and much more!
All our courses here at City Lit are taught by expert tutors such as published authors, academics, practising artists, and experienced professionals. Our friendly, supportive, and inspiring tutors are here to boost your confidence and motivate you at every step. We always ensure that your journey with us is enjoyable, positive, and thought-provoking.
We offer online courses and in-person courses. Our interactive online courses are taught live and in small groups. Read our guide to online learning for more information. In-person courses are delivered at our modern college campus in London near Covent Garden.
Please use the filters on this page to search by subject, location/delivery mode, time of day, price and more to ensure you find the perfect course for you.
If you can't decide which subject to study, why not try some of our short taster courses?
- Reading BrexLit: three novelsCourse start date: Tue 14 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonThe 2016 referendum result was one of the most significant events in recent British history. How can novels, written in that moment, shed light on the run-up to the vote and its immediate aftermath?
On this course we’ll study three fascinating and powerful novels, by Ali Smith, Anthony Cartwright and Adam Thorpe, exploring their stories and the backdrop they present of Britain’s divisions and connections.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £64.00 - Cinque settimane: un libro: Le piccole virtùCourse start date: Fri 17 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Ottavia CastellinaImprove your knowledge of Italian through on this short literature course which will give you an opportunity to learn new vocabulary and practise your grammar by being exposed to authentic Italian texts. This term we'll be reading Le piccole virtù by Natalia Ginzburg.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Italian: an introduction for beginnersCourse start date: Fri 17 May 2024
Location on this date: The British Museum
Tutors: Francesco BucciolAn opportunity to start your journey towards learning Italian with a short course at the British Museum. This course is for complete beginners and is being run to coincide with the Michelangelo: The Last Decades exhibition. This course will help you learn the basics, with an emphasis on speaking and listening, so you can interact with others in simple everyday situations.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - Keats and eternityCourse start date: Sun 19 May 2024
Location on this date: Off Site
Tutors: Laurie SmithIn the house where many of them were written, we will explore why Keats’s poems are regarded as exceptionally beautiful. How did he achieve this? We will see that it wasn’t luck or simply inspiration, but the result of choices which reflect important aspects of Keats’ personality. Includes ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, Ode to a Grecian Urn’ and ‘To Autumn’.
This course will take place at Keats House, 10 Keats Grove, Hampstead, London NW3 2RR.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £32.00 - Italian 2 listening skillsCourse start date: Tue 21 May 2024 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Silvana VistolaThis skills-based course is for lower intermediate learners of Italian and aims to provide you with special training in how to listen more effectively to spoken Italian in a variety of different contexts. You'll also look at elements of Italian pronunciation to give you a better idea of how Italian is spoken.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00 - Ways into advanced literature: disruptors, transgressors and storytellersCourse start date: Wed 22 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Patricia SweeneyExplore the rewards of close reading analysis, focusing on fiction, drama and the literary essay. Read, analyse and debate works from the mid-twentieth century that challenged the status quo and entered into the debates of the time. Includes 'A Single Man' by Christopher Isherwood, 'A Delicate Balance' by Edward Albee and 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' by Joan Didion.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £64.00 - Reading Shakespeare: a director's perspective - Twelfth Night and Two Gentlemen of VeronaCourse start date: Wed 22 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laura BaggaleyTake a fresh look at Shakespeare, exploring selected plays in the company of an experienced theatre director. With performance in mind, we will examine the language of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Twelfth Night,
and discuss how Shakespeare’s use of verse evolves over the course of his career.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00 - Contemporary women's fictionCourse start date: Wed 22 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochDiscuss a selection of novels written by women in contemporary British society. Focusing on the 21st century, we consider the concerns of fiction in grappling with representing the now. We will make links between literary texts and social context to consider how fiction might be influenced by and influencing the real world beyond its covers. Texts include Bernardine Evaristo's Mr. Loverman (2013), Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon (2013) and Ali Smith's Hotel World (2002).
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Six poets: the 20th century female experienceCourse start date: Thu 30 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Woody RiverThrough the words of six female poets from different countries spanning a hundred years, we will explore what it meant to be a woman in the 20th Century. The poems we will read cover a diverse range of topics such as desire and sexuality, loneliness and race, gender and feminism. Includes poems by Charlotte Mew, Anna Akhmatova, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Forugh Farrokhzad, Gwendolyn Brooks and Carol Ann Duffy.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - The city and the myth: Venice in 20th & 21st century literatureCourse start date: Fri 31 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David BarnesThe beautiful city of Venice has attracted writers as diverse as Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann, Ezra Pound and Jeanette Winterson. These writers eulogised Venice as a city of art and culture, praising its gorgeous Gothic palaces and shimmering waters. In this course we look behind the myth, exploring the fascinating and surprising stories behind these Venetian visions.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00 - Medieval Drama: the Mystery CyclesCourse start date: Mon 3 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rachel BuglassThis course explores the Medieval Mystery plays, also known as the York Corpus Christi plays, focusing on the oldest of the four great cycles of biblical drama that have survived from late Medieval England. We will consider theatrical conventions, costumes and props, the performances and open-air staging of the plays and the medieval guilds and writers that were responsible for them.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £64.00 - Marriage and murder: Othello and MacbethCourse start date: Tue 4 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettShakespeare presents us with two visions of marriage, the Macbeths’ longstanding but filled with passion and rivalry, Othello’s fragile and still largely innocent. Macbeth and his wife know each other only too well – Othello and Desdemona barely at all. We the audience become sucked into these marital dramas through the force of Shakespeare’s dazzling imagery, psychological insight and sensational plotting. We’ll be studying the characters, the poetry and the ideas of both plays in detail.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00 - George Eliot: MiddlemarchCourse start date: Thu 6 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamThis short literature course will explore George Eliot’s novel, ‘Middlemarch’ (1871-2). Considered by many to be the greatest nineteenth century novel, we explore its narrative methods and characterisation, its rich engagement with the ideas and concerns of its age, and above all, its deep humanity that still resonates today.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00 - 'A terrible beauty is born': poetry in revolutionary timesCourse start date: Mon 10 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithIs Auden right that “poetry makes nothing happen”? We look at how poets have helped people to understand, cope with and sometimes resist oppression in revolutionary periods from the late18th century to the present.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Beckett and The Divine Comedy: a lifelong influenceCourse start date: Thu 13 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the intimate relationship between Beckett’s universe of unbelief, presided over by a Godot who never comes, and Dante’s poem, the most exalted, vastly influential literary expression of medieval Christianity, whose presence can be felt everywhere in the Irishman’s long oeuvre, in every genre – in his plays, novels, stories, poems, essays - and at every stage of his career. What brought them together, and what were the results?Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00
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