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. Beckett and The Divine Comedy: a lifelong influence
    Course start date:  Thu 13 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Stephen Winfield
    Explore the intimate relationship between Beckett’s universe of unbelief, presided over by a Godot who never comes, and Dante’s poem, the most exalted, vastly influential literary expression of medieval Christianity, whose presence can be felt everywhere in the Irishman’s long oeuvre, in every genre – in his plays, novels, stories, poems, essays - and at every stage of his career. What brought them together, and what were the results?
    Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00
  2. Masters of style: reading and writing Virginia Woolf
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 15 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Thomas McMullan, Patricia Sweeney
    Virginia Woolf was one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers. Her approaches to writing character interiority were at the forefront of modernist literary innovations. This day workshop explores the literary interpretations of several seminal texts and writing exercises that encourage you to experiment with Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £30.00
  3. More Free than Enslaved? An in-depth study of Old Doll’s Family, Barbados 1754-1838
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 15 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Join us for an in-depth study of this incredible, and possibly unique, family. What can their story tell us about the impact of race, social class and gender upon the lives of enslaved women in Barbados?
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £38.00
  4. London's East End in fact and fiction
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 15 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Sarah Wise
    Covering the early 19th century to the early 20th century, we will examine the history of the East End, and we will analyse how it was portrayed in works of fiction.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
    Rating:
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  5. Queer Storytelling: writing as a radical act
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 16 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Megan Beech
    This one day short course will explore the writing of two contemporary queer writers, both of whom use innovative form to tell unique stories of lesbian and trans experience. We'll look at the exhilarating, T.S Eliot Prize winning, C+nto and Othered Poems (2021) by Joelle Taylor and Variations (2022).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  6. The Ottomans and the Sublime Porte (1299-1922): Istanbul's control of the Mediterranean and the Balkans
    Course start date:  Fri 21 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Roberta Marin
    This course will offer an insight into the long and complex history of the Ottoman empire and of Istanbul, its iconic capital.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  7. The Worlds of Contemporary Travel Literature
    Evening
    Course start date:  Fri 21 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Rebecca Jones
    Explore new directions in contemporary travel literature, as authors from across the world take the genre beyond the colonial European gaze that once characterised it. We examine themes such as diaspora, postcolonialism, language and ethics, looking at classic texts by Caryl Phillips, Pico Iyer and Jamaica Kincaid, and recent works by Emmanuel Iduma, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and Raja Shehadeh.
    Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £64.00
  8. Cinema beyond the cinema
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 22 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Paul Sutton
    Nowadays there are so many ways to watch film - smart phones, tablets, TVs - just as there are so many different spaces in which we encounter the moving image - cinemas, galleries, our homes, to name but a few. This day-long course will broaden and deepen your critical awareness of the diverse formal and experiential possibilities of cinema, both as they have developed in the past and as they are transforming in the contemporary moment. It will do this by reflecting on two questions: ‘what is cinema?’ and ‘where is cinema?’.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  9. Art of Islamic Spain
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 22 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Roberta Marin
    Discover the art and architecture of Spain during the Arab domination (711-1493).
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  10. Up close and personal with Greek archaeological treasures
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sat 22 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Sarah Merali-Smith
    Discover stunning objects from ancient Greece and the evidence they provide for the lives of ancient people. Spend the afternoon having a close look at the British Museum's collection.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
  11. How to write a novel synopsis and query letter
    Weekend
    Course start date:  Sun 23 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  Rosie Chard
    This one-day workshop teaches students how to write a query letter and synopsis of their completed manuscript, essential requirements of submitting to agents and publishers.
    Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £35.00
  12. Gaslighters, Grifters and Gangsters: Psycho-thrillers of the 40s and 50s
    Course start date:  Thu 27 Jun 2024

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  William Brady
    Join us to explore the rise of a dark, psychologically complex strain of Crime Fiction in the 1940s and 50s. Often termed the ‘psycho-thriller’, these novels put the criminal mind centre-stage, delving into murkier recesses of the human psyche than had previously been entertained. Focusing on two key examples of the genre, Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square and Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, we will analyse and contextualise the psycho-thriller as it evolved in Britain and America.
    Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00
  13. Women in Ancient Greece
    Course start date:  Fri 28 Jun 2024 (and 1 other date)

    Location on this date:  Keeley Street

    Tutors:  William Sterling
    In this course we shall examine women in myth, women in religion and the everyday life of women. It will conclude with a visit to the British Museum.
    Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00
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