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.
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- Masters of cinema: love, marriage and betrayalCourse start date: Thu 21 Sep 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Mick McAloonMarriage has always been fertile ground for filmmakers, and some directors – Rossellini, Bergman, Godard – have gone deeper than most. This course looks at the ways cinema’s greatest filmmakers have approached the subject. It explores original works by artists who have “mined” their own lives for material, while showing how adaptations of literary works can, in the hands of great film-makers, become a kind of veiled autobiography.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - Fin de siecle writers: Oscar Wilde to Olive SchreinerCourse start date: Mon 25 Sep 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Megan BeechThis online course will look at the unique style of writers who emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. We’ll explore fin de siècle writers who were grappling with new questions of modernity. Using the exciting backdrop of the 1890s, this course explores the cultural innovations of the period alongside the works of Oscar Wilde and other writers of this period.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - 'Bowers of bliss'? Gardens and the poetic imaginationCourse start date: Wed 4 Oct 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamThis online poetry course considers some of the many ways in which poets have written about gardens to explore a range of concerns, including sexuality and desire; corruption, decay, and mortality; retreat and consolation; growth and renewal; cultivation and wildness; and changing perspectives on the relationship between humans and nature.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Nazi Germany: politics, society, war and genocide
Course start date: Wed 4 Oct 2023Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rudolf MuhsThis course offers a broad survey of Nazi Germany, its leaders and its population, its racial ideology, political ambitions and structures of rule, its opponents and its victims, and its ultimate descent into world war and genocide.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - From isolationism to global superpower: the US from 1900 to 1945Course start date: Wed 4 Oct 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Dafydd TownleyThis interactive lecture outline course explores the political, social, and cultural development of the United States and considers how it has contributed to modern American society.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Reading fairytales: happy every after?Course start date: Wed 11 Oct 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochReading a selection of classic fairy tales, we will explore how fairy tales evolve by reading different versions, including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and ‘Bluebeard’, investigating how fairy tales evolve by reading different versions,.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Avant-garde women: art innovations of the 20th & 21st centuries Course start date: Thu 12 Oct 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeDiscover the work of prominent modern and contemporary women artists from the early twentieth century to the present, looking at the political and social transformations reflected in the artworks.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Spanish Art 1900-1937: the age of Picasso, Miró and Dalí Course start date: Wed 1 Nov 2023
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Mark Stuart-SmithReflecting a 'silver age' of literature, art in Spain before the Civil war encompasses the modernist genius of Picasso, Juan Gris and Miró; the surrealism of Dalí and the late Impressionism of Joaquín Sorolla.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Communism in the USSR: 1945-1991 Course start date: Mon 15 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Nick MorganThis course is an introduction to the history of the Soviet regime from the moment of its victory in the Second World
War to its collapse in 1991.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 - The art and cinema of 20th century Spain: from Picasso to AlmodóvarCourse start date: Wed 17 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Mark Stuart-SmithExplore the development of Spanish art from Picasso’s 1937 'Guernica' to the installations of Juan Muñoz in the 1980s and 1990s. We will focus on key episodes highlighting General Franco’s impact on Spanish art 1936-2000.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - The American century: the US from 1945 to the presentCourse start date: Wed 17 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Dafydd TownleyThis interactive lecture outline course explores the political, social, and cultural development of the United States since the end of World War 2 to the present day.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Post war German history: 1945-1961Course start date: Wed 17 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rudolf MuhsThis course offers a broad survey of German history from the end of the Second World War to the construction of the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold war.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Anthropology: language, culture, communicationCourse start date: Mon 22 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Max CarocciExplore the different ways in which humans communicate socially via culture. The course's thematic approach covers topics such as language, art, and social relations.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - The poetry of modernity: Baudelaire, Dickinson, Rilke, MandelstamCourse start date: Thu 25 Jan 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldFollow the paths taken by four of the most courageous, life-affirming, uncompromisingly individual poets of the modern era, as they confront the challenges of psychological, sexual and artistic alienation (Baudelaire), religious and political conformity (Dickinson and Mandelstam), and of a world lost to materialism and the march of technology, devoid of all spirituality (Rilke: “You must change your life”).
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Editing your children's novel
Course start date: Mon 24 Apr 2023 (and 1 other date)Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Penny JoelsonIf you have a first draft of a novel for children or young adults that is ready for editing, this lively course will help you to get your manuscript into shape for submission to agents.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £159.00
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