Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses
Explore our extraordinary range of History, Culture and Writing courses and lectures. We offer both introductory and specialist in-depth courses to suit all levels of interest and experience, from ‘How to read a film’ and World literature, to Creative non-fiction writing courses and American history and Politics courses.
Our tutors are experts in their fields and experienced educators; many have published, teach in universities or share their expertise in the media. Tutors share their knowledge and passion through presentations, readings, interactive discussion and exercises, analysis, and other activities.
Many students return to take more courses, telling us they enjoy being part of our City Lit Learning community.
Our popular courses often sell out quickly, so we invite you to browse and book your place now.
- In Scrooge's Footsteps: A Christmas Carol & Dickens WalkCourse start date: Tue 9 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Off Site
Tutors: Eleanor JacksonJoin us for a festive walk in the footsteps of Scrooge, looking at the locations and impact of Dickens’s most famous work. We will also examine how Dickens’s story has influenced our ideas of Christmas.
Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00 - Women in art: 1900-1960
Course start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Elizabeth EyresOn this course we shall explore and examine the considerable, and significant, contributions of women painters and sculptors to the avant-garde art world during the first half of the 20th century. - From the 1880s to the 1930s: how the new East End was born Course start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David RosenbergIn an area branded 'the hell of poverty', libraries, theatres, art galleries and social housing were established. Workers went on strike and activists campaigned for better lives. Discover this history by taking actual, guided walks through six tumultuous decades of change. The first session is in the classroom at Keeley Street but all other sessions are guided walks. Full details of the meeting places for each walk will be given at the 1st session. Please note: no class/break week 27 May 2025. 6 guided walks with 2 Zoom sessions. - Masterworks of 19th Century French and Russian literatureCourse start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis class explores classic texts of 19th century French and Russian literature, discussing literary style, themes, and contexts as a way of developing and sharing responses to celebrated European writing. Among the French writers examined will be Balzac, Baudelaire, Flaubert and Rimbaud, with our Russians including Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - First Novels Revisited: Amis, McEwan, Barnes, IshiguroCourse start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lewis WardMartin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro are household names of contemporary British fiction. But how did their careers begin in the 1970s and 1980s? And how do their early efforts stand up today?Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - Cult TV: David Lynch's Twin PeaksCourse start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Paul SuttonWhen it hit UK TV screens in October 1990, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks was more than just another US television series, it was as one critic describes it, ‘a seismic event in popular culture’ (Tobias 2020). In an era when TV aired live it was a must-see series with fevered pre-episode speculation and critical post-broadcast discussion characterising viewers’ engagement with this cult phenomenon. The mystery over who killed Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) preoccupied TV viewers across the autumn and winter of 1990. For me it was the first live series that I watched from start to finish.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Hell, Heaven and Purgatory in the Middle AgesCourse start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Emma Rose BarberWhy were images to do with the afterlife so prevalent in the Middle Ages? Come, face your eternal destinies and look at images such as the Last Judgement, skeletons, filthy flesh, worms, ghosts and Hell mouths.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - Argonautica: reading group (in translation) module 3Course start date: Tue 6 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Nikoletta ManiotiA reading group focusing on the Argonautica by the Greek poet Apollonius of Rhodes (in English translation).Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - America in the 40s: culture and society Course start date: Tue 6 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Zoe Crombie, Pauline Greene, Mark Malcomson, Dale Mineshima-Lowe, Patricia Sweeney, Ian TucknottThe bombing of Pearl Harbor brought Americans into WW2, while the European need for goods pulled the USA out of the Depression of the 30s, providing new opportunities for women, African Americans and other people of colour.
Post-War America saw a new energy, of hope but also despair. This online intertextual course explores the political, social and cultural context of 1940s America through a study of the literature, history, music, film and art of the period.
With different tutors for each specialism, the course provides a 'taster' in each subject as a gateway to further study in understanding this fascinating period in American culture and society.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Immortal Longings: Romeo and Juliet and Antony and CleopatraCourse start date: Tue 6 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettTwo great plays by Shakespeare, two love stories, two pairs of tragic lovers: Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra. Discover how Shakespeare entered the hearts of one couple still in their teens, astonished by their new found emotions, the other in the autumn of their lives, worldly and experienced, but whose passion for each other drew two great powers into fatal conflict.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - The History of the Irish short story: from James Joyce to Claire KeeganCourse start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThe short story has come to be seen as one of Irish Literature’s most celebrated forms of expression. From the early stories of George Moore and James Joyce, to modern classics by John McGahern, William Trevor and Claire Keegan, the short story has allowed Irish writers to pick apart the complexities of Irish society in powerful, precise and poetic terms. This course will explore some of the most iconic short stories of twentieth-century Irish literature.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - London's hidden art and architecture Course start date: Tue 29 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Off Site
Tutors: Julie BarlowUncover a whole new side of London, from Roman times to the present day through a series of walks and visits to art galleries and historic sites. - London 1979-2020Course start date: Tue 6 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Mike BerlinExplore the transformation of London from the onset of Thatcherism in 1979 to its status as a global metropolis in the 21st century.Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00
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