Explore History, Culture & Writing

An exploration of art history that draws on specific political and social movements in modern, Western history and how artists contribute to and/or influence the dialogue. We will conclude with an engagement with contemporary art and politics.

This online course considers the relationship between walking and writing in three innovative works of literary non-fiction: Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘Street Haunting’ (1927), Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’ (written c. 1945, first pub. 1977), and Rebecca Solnit’s ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ (2006).



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

Get 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.

Explore the work of three radical artists whose work and practice defied convention in modern art from the 1920s to 1960s. Discover how each artist challenged and transcended society’s expectations of being a ‘muse’ by living freely and making art in a variety of media, from painting and sculpture to collage, photography and performance.



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

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks, 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.

Explore and discuss contemporary art on show in London. Each week we’ll visit 1-2 commercial galleries or a public gallery and examine specific exhibitions of contemporary art across a range of media including painting, works on paper, photography, new media and sculpture.

Maps have a long and fascinating history, yet it was really the 20th Century that saw them come alive as an artistic medium, as artists turned to them to explore their place in a disoriented world. Discover the many ways artists have worked with maps, from Surrealism through to Digital Media.



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