History, culture & writing - Keeley Street

Explore History, Culture & Writing

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.

Courses available both in-person and online

We offer a range of long and short courses allowing you to choose between in-person and online learning.

Learn in the centre of London with our in-person courses. Our purpose-built facilities in Covent Garden mean we are ideally located and easy to get to. 

See our guide to online learning for more information about accessing our live online courses.

All our courses are live, interactive, and taught by expert tutors. No matter how you prefer to learn, we've got the class for you.

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  1. From Nonsense to the Surreal: Edward Lear to Angela Carter
    Course start date:  Wed 25 Sep 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Laurie Smith
    Surrealism is one of the great developments of 20th century literature. It’s different from the fantasies of previous centuries (fairy and folk tales, imaginative stories set in remote parts of the world, satires, science fiction) because it expresses complex bizarre experiences that many people recognise as possibly part of themselves. It may reflect desires which are difficult to admit but are sometimes expressed with wit and humour. We explore how surrealism developed from the apparent nonsense of three 19th century English writers.
    Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00
  2. Reading Shakespeare: a director's perspective - Romeo and Juliet and the Taming of the Shrew
    Course start date:  Wed 25 Sep 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Laura Baggaley
    Take a fresh look at Shakespeare, exploring selected plays in the company of an experienced theatre director. With performance in mind, we will examine the language and themes of two plays and discuss the extraordinary variety to be found within Shakespeare’s work.
    Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00
  3. Cultureplex ciné-club
    Course start date:  Thu 25 Apr 2024 (and 1 other date)

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Paul Sutton
    Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks, we will watch and discuss film. Taking its cue from the famous Parisian ciné-club set up by the celebrated critic and writer, André Bazin, ‘the single thinker most responsible for bestowing on cinema the prestige both of an artform and of an object of knowledge’, and the man who foresaw the emergence of film studies as a legitimate discipline of academic study, our contemporary incarnation of the film club will offer a curated series of films for detailed study, discussion and debate. Each film will be introduced, placed in both its cinematic, cultural and historic context. In sharing our viewing in City Lit’s premier screening room, the Cultureplex, we will approximate the experience of watching film in the cinema, one that is intense and fully focussed in a way that other modes of viewing often are not. After the screening we will devote the rest of the class to a collective exploration of the film, led by the tutor, but involving everyone in a participatory discussion that will allow all to express their responses, their views, their thoughts on the film screened.
    Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00
  4. Nineteenth Century American Literary Classics
    Course start date:  Fri 27 Sep 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Richard Niland
    This class explores the wonderful world of 19th century American literature, reading classic texts to broaden knowledge of literary history through a range of influential novels, stories, and poems. Among the writers considered in their literary, political, and cultural contexts will be Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain.
    Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00
  5. City Lit reading group 1
    Course start date:  Fri 29 Sep 2023 (and 1 other date)

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Kate Wilkinson
    Share thoughts and ideas about what you are reading, with books chosen by the group. Please come to the first session on Friday 29 September with suggestions (English-language contemporary fiction in paperback) and having read 'Unsettled Ground', by Clare Fuller. Meetings take place on 29 September, 10 November, 2 February, 1 March, 10 May and 14 June.
    Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00
  6. Philosophy and literature: from existentialism to (post)modernism
    Course start date:  Fri 27 Sep 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Barrie Selwyn
    Literature provides a very effective springboard into the understanding of the developing notions of selfhood and human nature in the history of ideas and philosophy sharpens our understanding of literature within the broader context of this history.
    Full fee £259.00 Senior fee £207.00 Concession £168.00
  7. Writing true crime
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 5 Oct 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Learn how to research and write a compelling true crime novel or script.
    Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £40.00
  8. Connecting through collaborative writing
    Course start date:  Wed 9 Oct 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Brian Mullin
    Two (or more!) heads are better than one! Collaborate with others to create short pieces of theatre, using everyone's skills and ideas to tell collective stories.
    Full fee £5.00 Senior fee £5.00 Concession £5.00
  9. Literary werewolves and vampires
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 19 Oct 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Megan Beech
    On this short course we will explore the way in which authors in the nineteenth century created and shaped what we write and think about vampires and werewolves today. We will read extracts from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla alongside various short stories, penny dreadfuls, and news articles from the period.
    Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00
  10. Fifties film noir: Kiss me Deadly
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 26 Oct 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  John Wischmeyer
    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).
    Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00
  11. An artistic history of Jerusalem
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 16 Nov 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Roberta Marin
    Jerusalem is considered the holy city for the three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and is one of the most iconic cities in the world.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  12. Interpreting the Bible: key skills and texts
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 16 Nov 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Andrew Grey
    Discover and explore key principles, knowledge and skills for interpreting the Bible, and apply them to select texts from the Old and New Testament.
    Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00
  13. An introduction to Japanese anime: history, genres and authors
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 23 Nov 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Cristina Massaccesi
    What is anime? What are the artistic and narrative features that make these films so instantly recognizable? This one-day film course will provide an overview of the history of Japanese animation cinema, its inextricable links with manga and its multi-faceted and varied productions that range from children’s films to genres such as cyberpunk and yaoi. During the course, we will watch and discuss clips from a variety of production companies and directors, such as Haya Miyazaki, the Studio Ghibli and Katsuhiro Otomo.
    Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00
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