Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

Learn how to evaluate and discuss films while enjoying a working example of a City Lit Film Studies class. In this class we will view and explore clips from a number of films, including popular remakes, enabling us to consider and compare themes and techniques from differing filmmaking countries. There will be a chance to review – in brief – film courses at City Lit (September - December 2024).



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Explore Expressionism as it developed in different locations and within different movement, with a focus on Kandinsky as its key example, considering issues such as artistic influences and stylistic developments.

In fiction, character and plot are inseparable elements of craft. Without characters there can be no action or plot. In this short course you will learn how to create characters that can drive a narrative forward and deepen its themes.

Paolo Sorrentino has been described as ‘the most promising Italian director of his generation’. This one-day course will explore the cinema of this Neapolitan filmmaker renowned for his ‘commitment to style’. We will look at a number of his films as well as his television work, and examine some of the themes that he has returned to throughout his career, for example, power, nostalgia and solitude. We will also consider his Sorrentino’s relationship with figures such as the cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the actor Toni Servillo, both of whom have collaborated frequently with the director. So, join us in City Lit’s Cultureplex screening space for day-long immersion into the beautifully stylish cinematic world of Paolo Sorrentino.

Explore the Neo-classical movement, focusing on David as its key example, considering issues such as politics and social change, biography, artistic and theoretic influences, notably that of Winckelmann.

Explore Realism in the nineteenth century, focusing on Manet as its key example, considering such issues as social and political change, formal and subject developments, theoretic interests and artistic influences.

This study day will examine the question of the association of women with magic and witchcraft.

Film Noir was the term coined by French critics to describe a distinctive style in American cinema during the decade after the war. In the transitional 1950s, genres that had been Hollywood staples began to change, evolve, or fade away. Film Noir evolved because it was too vital, too useful, and just too enjoyable to fade away. Just as John Huston’s Maltese Falcon (1941) kick-started film noir in the forties, his Asphalt Jungle (1950) introduced a darker fifties’ noir. Or did noir begin and end with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958)? ((See related courses on Fifties Melodrama and Musicals and 50 Films From the ‘50s: Hollywood’s Last Stand).

A look through archaeology at the spectacular rise and fall of Londinium from c. AD 47 to its abandonment in c. AD 457. Includes an introductory lecture, and a guided city walk.

Explore how 19th century European artists from the Impressionists to Art Nouveau transformed their artistic language with the study of Japanese prints.

Discover the untold stories and hidden legacies of women in modern China in this illuminating one-day course. Traverse time, from the late Qing Dynasty to the present, to examine how women have shaped and been shaped by social, political, and cultural currents.