Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

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.

Curious about art history? Join us for this taster session where we explore different ways into visual art and its histories from the ancient to the contemporary.



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

Indigenous Australian art has, in recent years, been increasingly exhibited and discussed in Britain. Yet little is known about the history and development of this art movement and the oeuvres of the artists responsible for its creation. This introductory course will provide a history of how Indigenous Australian artists have changed and challenged the course of national and international art fields in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Are you interested in art and want to get more out of looking at art and exhibitions? Want to know what an art historian does? Develop your interpretative skills by exploring at how art is made and what social and cultural factors construct our understanding of it.

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.

Famously unsuccessful in his own lifetime, Vincent van Gogh developed his unique style be engaging with his contemporaries, old masters and Japanese art. Discover van Gogh’s influences and legacy in this one-day course.

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).

Not sure whether creative writing is for you? Give it a try on one of these fun and supportive short courses covering the basics of fiction and poetry. Increase your confidence and produce work through guided exercises and discussion.

This course is a historical reconstruction of Ethiopia’s guerrilla insurgency, its actors and their motivation, peculiarity, and/or commonness of tactics, as well as its impact and challenges during the 1935-1941 Italian invasion/occupation of Ethiopia. Tutor: Dr Sunday Oyewole.