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.
Courses available both in-person and online
We offer a range of courses allowing you to choose between online and in-person learning. All our courses are live, interactive, and taught by expert tutors. No matter how you prefer to learn, you’ll receive the same great City Lit experience. See our guide to online learning for more information about accessing our live online 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.
- Creative non-fiction: an introduction
Course start date: Thu 9 Jun 2022 (and 5 other dates)Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Claire CollisonThis short introductory course explores the core elements of creative non-fiction across genres such as travel writing, the personal essay and life writing. On this course you will start to produce your own works of creative non-fiction.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £52.00 - How to write a short storyCourse start date: Mon 18 Jul 2022 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street (other locations are available)
Tutors: Vicky GrutThrough a series of inspiring and practical exercises, you'll be encouraged to tap into your imagination and draft a short story from beginning to end in this supportive short course.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £52.00 - Screenwriting for feature filmCourse start date: Mon 1 Aug 2022 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street (other locations are available)
Tutors: Sharmila ChauhanHave you ever wondered what goes into writing a screenplay? How is it different from theatre, radio or prose? Learn the basics of the craft and develop a script of your own in this creative and analytical workshop.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £52.00 - How to Read a Film: A Beginners' Guide to CinemaCourse start date: Mon 9 May 2022 (and 4 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street (other locations are available)
Tutors: Paul SuttonThis course will develop your critical appreciation of the cinema by teaching you how to read and understand film texts. We will look at the elements that underpin film form – narrative, mise en scène, cinematography, editing and sound – alongside its historical development. We will consider film style by exploring classical, post-classical and art cinema and we will examine influential critical modes of analysis, such as genre, authorship and spectatorship.Full fee £109.00 Senior fee £109.00 Concession £71.00 - Writing for magazinesCourse start date: Tue 24 May 2022 (and 6 other dates)
Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Susan GrossmanGet inspired to write on this practical course for freelance journalists and bloggers. Learn to carry out research, interview people, pitch and publish stories, and build your presence on social media.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £65.00 - Writing a memoir: an introductionCourse start date: Thu 16 Jun 2022 (and 5 other dates)
Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Julie GartonSome moments in our lives are so powerful they beg to be shared with the world. This course will help you plan and craft a memoir that will resonate and inspire.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £65.00 - Writing from Life: from Maggie O'Farrell to Ocean VuongCourse start date: Tue 27 Sep 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonWhat do we want and expect from ‘life stories’? How does this change when we read memoirs and novels? This course reads a selection of fascinating books and extracts, which experiment to combine memoir, personal experience and invention in different ways. As well as memoirs we’ll study ‘autofiction’ – a relatively new description for the work of novelists whose material is, explicitly, their own life – and consider ideas about this tricky and at times controversial category of writing. We’ll think too about some of the ethical and cultural questions that ‘writing from life’ raises, including privacy, a right of reply, and factors that may affect a work’s critical reception.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £90.00 - Ways into Advanced fiction, poetry and drama: Nineteenth Century VoicesCourse start date: Wed 12 Oct 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Hugh Epstein, Patricia SweeneyExplore the rewards of close reading analysis, focusing on the three main literary genres of fiction,
poetry and drama. Read, analyse and debate British, European and American works from different periods of time, including The Awakening(1899) by Kate Chopin, A Doll's House (1879) by Henrik Ibsen, and poetry by Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barratt Browning, Matthew Arnold, Alfred Tennyson, and Christina Rossetti.Full fee £109.00 Senior fee £109.00 Concession £71.00 - An introduction to medieval art and architectureCourse start date: Tue 1 Nov 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard PlantAn introduction to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Study the art of the era and the architecture of the prominent Gothic cathedrals and medieval buildings of the continent and England.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £90.00 - Writing a memoir (continuation)Course start date: Fri 4 Nov 2022 (and 4 other dates)
Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Paul LaffanSome moments in our lives are so powerful they beg to be shared with the world. This continuation course guides students in developing a memoir project that will resonate and inspire.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £65.00 - European architecture in the Middle Ages 800-1500Course start date: Tue 10 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard PlantExplore the development of architecture in Europe from the Carolingian period to the end of the middle ages and study the major monuments – cathedrals, parish churches and castles of the age.Full fee £109.00 Senior fee £109.00 Concession £71.00 - Paper Secrets: letters in novels from Julian Barnes to Tayari JonesCourse start date: Tue 10 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonWould you ever open other people’s letters? This contemporary fiction course invites you to read intimate correspondence over characters’ shoulders, to piece together the stories of long-forgotten letters, and to watch stolen letters set comic and catastrophic events in motion. We’ll study four absorbing novels in detail, exploring ideas about memory, time and communication, and discovering how letters are tangled up in them all. Includes
Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2011), Claire Fuller, Swimming Lessons (2017), Denis Thériault, The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman (2017) and Tayari Jones, An American Marriage (2018).Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £90.00 - Advanced creative non-fiction workshopCourse start date: Wed 8 Jun 2022 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Paul LaffanThis advanced workshop is designed for students who have already completed introductory and intermediate creative-non fiction courses and would like to focus on workshopping their writing.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £65.00 - Curating and collecting contemporary art in the UKCourse start date: Wed 22 Feb 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Chantal CondronHave you ever wondered how works of art and cultural objects have been collected for public museums and galleries in Britain? Who collected these objects? What functions have public collections played in society? Why ‘collect for the nation’?Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £90.00 - Autobiography into fictionCourse start date: Thu 23 Feb 2023 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Nick BarlayThis 6-week course will help you develop techniques for transforming personal experience into fiction. You'll have the opportunity to improve your writing skills as well as your ability to give and use constructive criticism in a workshop environment.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £65.00
Can't see a course you want?
Add this category to your waiting list to set up alerts and we will update you when new courses are released online.
Add me to waiting list