Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses
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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- The mirror of nature: art and culture in the 17th century
Course start date: Fri 9 May 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Leslie PrimoThe 17th century produced some of the greatest artists of all time: Rubens, Rembrandt, Velazquez and Bernini to name but a few. Explore the work of these key artists and understand the history, styles and ideas that shaped the century.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Art in Britain since 2000: where are we now?Course start date: Fri 9 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Chantal CondronDiscover how exciting, new UK-based artists use both experimental and traditional approaches to art to address issues of identity, history and personal experience. - Philosophy and cultural theoryCourse start date: Fri 9 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Barrie SelwynMerleau Ponty’s concept of embodied subjectivity continues to shape our views in cultural theory and theories of knowledge in general. We will explore his ideas and their applications as well as the general context from which they emerge. - Ways of reading: aspects of narrative theoryCourse start date: Fri 16 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Jenny StevensWhat do we mean by ‘literary fiction’? What expectations do we bring to the novels we read? Do we really ‘escape’ when we enter fictional worlds? These are just some of the questions addressed in a course which focuses on the analysis of prose fiction. Reading texts as short as one-sentence ‘flash fiction’ to complete short stories, it engages with writing from a wide range of periods and authors, paying close attention to narrative techniques and their effects. - Philosophy and cinemaCourse start date: Fri 30 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Daniel WeizmanWe explore the intersection of film and philosophy, engaging with the works of influential thinkers and film makers. Together, we discover how cinema opens new possibilities to examine enduring philosophical questions concerning the mind, reality, identity, and ideology.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Poets of the Silver Age, the Revolution and the TerrorCourse start date: Fri 13 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldThis course will look, decade by decade, at the leading figures of the generation caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution whose lives and poetry together form a veritable seismograph of the unfolding tragedy. Their extraordinary interrelationships and the originality and power of their writing constitute one of the richest periods in the history of Russian Literature.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Refugee Week at City Lit: the refugee figure in the 20th centuryCourse start date: Fri 20 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Martin JorgensenJoin us to explore the changes in the figure of the refugee as events made people who become refugees a figure in global politics over the course of the 20th century as part of Refugee Week at City Lit.Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £8.00 Concession £7.00 - Christopher and his Kind: Christopher Isherwood in BerlinCourse start date: Fri 27 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Jake PollerThe experience of living in Berlin in the early 1930s had a transformative effect on the life and work of Christopher Isherwood. In this course, we will discuss Isherwood’s masterpiece, Goodbye to Berlin (1939), and his autobiography Christopher and His Kind (1976), which reveals the real people behind the characters of Sally Bowles and Otto Nowak, and shines a light on the queer culture of Berlin Isherwood was unable to write about in the 1930s.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £32.00 - Art history taster Course start date: Tue 1 Jul 2025 (and 7 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayCurious about art history? Join us for this taster session where we explore different ways into visual art and its histories from the ancient to the contemporary.Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £10.00 - City Lit reading group 1Course start date: Fri 19 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonShare 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 (contemporary fiction in paperback) and having read 'Story of the Forest' by Linda Grant. Meetings take place on 19/9, 24/10, 28/11, 30/1, 27/2, 27/3, 1/5, 29/5, 26/6.Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Philosophy and literature: Identity, Truth and the Poetic WordCourse start date: Fri 19 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Barrie SelwynLiterature 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 £309.00 Senior fee £247.00 Concession £201.00 - Art in Britain 1950-2000 - 'This is Tomorrow' (Part 1) Course start date: Fri 19 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Chantal CondronDiscover the work of selected British artists whose innovative practice shaped the development of modern art in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s. Explore how and why the ideas and themes behind their work continue to be relevant to today’s audiences. - City Lit reading group 2Course start date: Fri 26 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Patricia SweeneyShare thoughts and ideas about what you are reading, with books chosen by the group. Please come to the first session with suggestions (contemporary literary fiction in paperback) and having read 'Absolutely and Forever' by Rose Tremain. Monthly meetings take place on 26/9, 31/10, 5/12, 23/1, 20/2, 20/3, 8/5, 5/6, 3/7.Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Nineteenth Century American Literary ClassicsCourse start date: Fri 26 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis 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 Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Mark Twain and Kate Chopin.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - History, memory and mental wealth: why we need to talk about empireCourse start date: Fri 17 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Martin JorgensenFormally, European imperialism ended decades ago. Yet, the different legacies still affect the world and many societies today. Join us for a discussion on why we need to talk about empire and mental wealth.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00
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