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.
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- Leonard Cohen: song, poetry, prose and personaCourse start date: Thu 15 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis class explores the work of Leonard Cohen, examining his poetry, song, prose and persona in the context of the literary and musical traditions that shaped his art. We delve into Cohen’s meditations on life and the modern world through his absorption and reworking of a rich range of cultural influences.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Spectacles of the Ancient worldCourse start date: Thu 22 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Michael BloomfieldThis course explores some of the most elaborate and powerful displays of the Graeco-Roman world. Designed to entertain, inform, and elicit support, often at times of great political or religious significance, they were unforgettable, and have long exercised an influence on our own understanding of the nature of power.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00 - Symbols and stories: saints in art
Course start date: Thu 5 Jun 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Elizabeth EyresSaints are represented in masterpieces of Christian art from 1200 to the present – learn how to recognise them, decode their meanings and iconography and enhance your understanding of this aspect of art history. This course includes a gallery visit. - Master drawings from Leonardo to Degas: experiment and expressionCourse start date: Thu 3 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Explore the significant role of drawing in shaping art and how artists have used different drawing techniques for creative expression.
Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - City of words: London's literary landscapeCourse start date: Thu 11 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Blended (learn both online and in-person)
Tutors: Eleanor JacksonLondon has been muse, magnet and mecca to writers for 400 years, home to Shakespeare's successes, Dickens' dramas and Wilde's witticisms. After an introductory lecture (via zoom) we walk a different London neighbourhood each week exploring its literary connections.Break week/No class: 09/10/25. Initial lecture is on zoom . This is followed by 7 guided walks.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - The men who built LondonCourse start date: Thu 11 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Eleanor JacksonLondon was shaped by its architects, engineers, bricklayers, navies etc. Our lecture and walks examine London’s buildings and the men (and women) who worked throughout history to create this eclectic and wonderful city.
First lecture will be delivered via zoom followed by 8 guided walks. Break week/no class 09/10/25.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - The Rise and Fall of Empires Part 2: 1940-1991Course start date: Thu 18 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alison ApplebyBoth victorious and defeated powers saw their empires dwindle as a consequences of the Second World War. This course looks at the fall of these empires in the period 1940-1991 and also at how the Cold War led to new spheres of influence and opportunities for domination, and the factors that gave rise to these.Full fee £309.00 Senior fee £247.00 Concession £201.00 - Get together and readCourse start date: Thu 1 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Claire AllenEnjoy talking with other people about the things you have read? Want to share great stories, poems and drama? Come along and join the conversation. The group is led by a shared reading practitioner trained by The Reader Organisation.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £75.00 - Colour in medieval artCourse start date: Thu 2 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Andreas PetzoldColour is an all pervasive and fundamental aspect of medieval art, but one that is largely neglected in art historical studies.This course looks at some of the main themes relating to colour such as symbolism, materials, theory and key developments.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Shakespeare's Women: Hamlet, Macbeth and As You Like ItCourse start date: Thu 2 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamThis Literature course will look at three of Shakespeare’s female characters: Rosalind (As You Like It), Ophelia (Hamlet) and Lady Macbeth (Macbeth). We will consider their wit, madness and ambition, exploring Shakespeare’s language, the historical context, and the plays in performance.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Lunchtime lecture: Cezanne – from aspiring Impressionist to Post-Impressionist revolutionaryCourse start date: Thu 23 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julia MusgraveExplore the development of Cezanne revolutionary approach to painting, his techniques and motifs and some of the many artists whose work he influenced.Full fee £14.00 Senior fee £11.00 Concession £9.00 - The essentials of British politicsCourse start date: Thu 23 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ian McGarvieThis essentials course will give you the foundations of the political system in the United Kingdom, whilst also enabling you to use your newly acquired knowledge to discuss and debate current affairs matters in real time.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - Irish history & identity 2 : From the coming of the English invasion in 1169 to the Coronation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland in 1541.Course start date: Thu 30 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Colm HickeyAlthough inextricably linked to Britain, Ireland’s history, identity, and nationhood has equally been shaped by its relationship with Europe. This course traces Ireland’s development from the coming of the English invasion in 1169 to the Coronation of Henry V111 as King of Ireland in 1541.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Still life in the history of art: opulence and fragilityCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Elizabeth EyresStill-life paintings usually represent ordinary things, often small and arranged on an indoor surface, without human presence. Long regarded in western art as the lowliest subject or “genre”, one that only required technical skill rather than imagination, still lifes are now considered some of the most charming and best loved paintings and can contain intriguing meanings that repay close study.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - 20th to 21st Century War Poetry: British and InternationalCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00
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