Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

Film remakes often get a bad press, but there is frequently more to them than meets the eye. Whether a remake of an older classic, as in the case of Gus van Sant’s reworking of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, for example, or the Hollywood remake of a cherished European film, these types of film reveal a set of complex cultural, national, industrial and perhaps even psychological connections. Join us to celebrate and to reflect on the film remake as we explore what makes a remake and we critically analyse some filmic examples.



This session is part of the 2024 Mental Wealth Festival hosted by City Lit and partners.

Nearly seventy countries still criminalise gay sex. Why is this? This course will attend to this question by examining the links between sexuality, colonialism and postcolonial gay rights.

What does AI mean for democracy? Join to explore the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on democracy, examining whether it poses a threat or is simply another technological advancement. Engage in discussions, case studies and critical analysis over five interactive sessions.

The history of the cinema is a rich, rewarding and dynamic area of study. Cinema, because it is both an art form and an industrial product, can be studied from several different historical perspectives. These have included investigations into the history of technological development associated with cinema’s origins and its subsequent development, but historians have also explored its evolution into an art form. They have written about important individual figures or influential groups and have examined specific films in great detail. Historians have also examined the national, cultural, political and social contexts that might offer insight into the cinema at a given historical moment. They have examined the changing demographic and viewing habits of spectators and explored the mutability of cinemas themselves. With so much to consider and so many different approaches to take, the history of cinema continues to evolve. As such this advanced level film studies course will explore what it means to study film history, examine the various methodologies that one might take, while at the same time looking at relevant filmic and cinematic examples.

This course will provide an exploration of 300 years of Jewish life, culture and history in London from the small scale resettlement in the 1650s through to the 1950s when the borough of Hackney was home to London’s largest and most diverse Jewish community.

The final years of the reign of Akhenaten, the gathering storm and tragedy which ended the ‘dream’ of Amarna.

The years 1890 to 1914 were a golden age for British writers of short stories. As the country moved from Victorian certainties to an unknown, possibly exciting, possibly frightening future, writers found the short story form perfectly suited to their concerns. The roll call is an impressive one: from Kipling, Hardy, HG Wells and Conan Doyle through Chesterton and Conrad to Katherine Mansfield and DH Lawrence.