Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

Although 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.

This course explores Mary Shelley’s iconic novel, Frankenstein. We will consider the novel’s literary, socio-political, philosophical, and scientific contexts, alongside thinking about its narrative themes and techniques. We’ll also touch upon its rich ‘afterlife’, thinking about some of the ways the novel has been reimagined in later adaptations, and asking why this story continues to have such resonance today.

Learn how to evaluate and discuss films while enjoying a working example of a City Lit Film Studies class. In this class we will view and explore clips from a number of films, including popular remakes, enabling us to consider and compare themes and techniques from differing filmmaking countries. There will be a chance to review – in brief – film courses at City Lit (January - March 2025).

Colour is one of the most pervasive elements in art but one that is rarely the subject of art historical discussion. We explore the part colour played in artistic developments, technical skill and material, as well as colour theory.

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 10 weeks (and throughout the rest of the academic year), 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.

This short literature course will explore Henry James’s novel ‘A Portrait of a Lady’ (1881). We will consider James’s narrative methods and concerns, and also engage with contextual and critical material to inform our reading.

Discover eight intriguing ancient cities, amazing places to visit today, but raw and turbulent in their Graeco-Roman heyday.

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. 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.



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

Explore the early history of Buddhist art in South Asia in this introductory course with a focus on objects in the British Museum.

Saints 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.