Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

Learn the skills to write comics on this introductory course. Discover the history and key features of the medium and create your own project.

They were called ‘foreign films’ in the fifties, the first films to emerge from Europe and further to a wider British and American audience: Bicycle Thieves (1948 Vittorio De Sica) Rashomon (1950 Akira Kurosawa), Pather Panchali (1955 Satyajit Ray), Seven Samurai (1954 Akira Kurosawa), The Seventh Seal (1957 Ingmar Bergman), Plein Soleil (1960 Rene Clement). They played at The Academy Oxford Street or The Everyman Hampstead. Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you discover a whole world of amazing films. Too many filmgoers are scared off by the notion of international cinema. In cultural shorthand, ‘foreign film’ was a euphemism for snootiness, a stereotype that kept audiences from experiencing some of the greatest movies ever made. Once you open yourself up to them you’ll find there’s nothing to be intimidated by.

American, or 'Hollywood' cinema, remains the dominant form of popular film and filmmaking, seen and enjoyed by millions of cinemagoers around the world. Explore its history, from the earliest days of the industry to its 'golden age' and its contemporary incarnation in popular culture, and the ways in which it has continually transformed itself in order to retain its position as the popular cinema.

Seen as the unifying and creative force in a film, directors have become important for both an audience's engagement and a film's marketing and 'positioning'. This course explores the work of a range of directors, or 'auteurs', their approach to filmmaking and their thematic interests, while assessing the concept of authorship and the contexts in which a director's work is produced and consumed.

This cinema course focuses on Italian cinema in the years between 1945 and 1980. It will provide you with an overview of the main historical, cultural and social aspects of Italian filmmaking in Italy by looking at the work of some of its most influential author/directors.

The 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.