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.
Study in-person at City Lit or offsite, or online from the comfort of home, with interactive classes that allow you to participate in discussions with fellow adult students. We offer daytime, evening and weekend courses, both short and long. For more information on our online courses, please see our guide to online learning.
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.
Filters
- Looking for the Golden Fleece: Jason and the ArgonautsCourse start date: Tue 7 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Maria ContosCome and explore the journey of the Argonauts and discover Jason.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £39.00 Senior fee £31.00 Concession £24.00 - Royal palaces, patrons and art treasures
Course start date: Tue 7 Jun 2022Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julie BarlowMegalomaniac monarchs in the post-Renaissance period and the ambitious artists they employed to create their ‘mega collections’– a fascinating moment in art patronage. Explore the palaces, art and personalities that make up this history.
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 £103.00 Concession £79.00 - Introduction to journalismCourse start date: Tue 7 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Tristan McConnellOn this course students will explore the basic skills a freelance journalist needs to write and sell news and features to newspapers and magazines. From developing ideas and identifying outlets to interview skills and approaching editors.
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 - Art and critical theory: feminism, post-colonialism and the death of the artistCourse start date: Tue 7 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the role of critical theory within the field of art history, and learn new ways of thinking about art by focusing on feminism, post-colonial theory and the notion of the death of the author.
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 £79.00 - Ways into creative writing: an introductionCourse start date: Tue 3 May 2022 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Online (other locations are available)
Tutors: Charlotte HeatherNot sure whether creative writing is for you? Give it a try on one of these fun and supportive short courses covering the basics of fiction and poetry. Increase your confidence and produce work through guided exercises and discussion.
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 - Wit, Sex and Passion: the MetaphysicalsCourse start date: Tue 7 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettThe poetry of the English 17th century - sometimes called Metaphysical poetry - is characterised by wit and wordplay that continue to delight and seduce us today. The poems of John Donne are brilliantly ingenious depictions of sexual passion, those of George Herbert are moving meditations on religious love, while Andrew Marvell in classic poems such as To His Coy Mistress treads a studiedly fine line between the art of seduction and sexual blackmail.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £60.00 - Introduction to Graphic NovelsCourse start date: Tue 14 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Peter CherryIn 2018, Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel Sabrina was long listed for the Man Booker Prize leading to renewed discussion about the graphic novel and its relationship to the novel form. In this course, we will discuss how graphic novels, or ‘narratives of sequential art’, have developed into a literary and cultural form over the latter half of the twentieth century and into the current day.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £60.00 - Symbols and stories: saints in artCourse start date: Tue 21 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Elizabeth EyresSaints 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.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £79.00 - Modern France: from de Gaulle and the Resistance to MacronCourse start date: Tue 21 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sebastien Ardouin(Re)discover France's complex politics during the Fourth and Fifth Republics, and the social challenges and tensions the country faced both at times of growth and modernisation and of crisis and doubts.
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 £57.00 - Europe and the East: Renaissance to 19th centuryCourse start date: Tue 21 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Anita ChowdryAn exploration of five centuries of trade and cultural exchange between the Islamic East and Europe, looking at their impacts on the arts, sciences, scholarship, taste and technology.
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 £103.00 Concession £79.00 - Nostalgia Cinema: the return of the 50s and 80sCourse start date: Tue 28 Jun 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Ann-Marie FlemingIn the 1970s, nostalgia became commercialised. Most notably, cinema looked to the fifties for material. This cinematic version of the era has a recognisable aesthetic. This course looks at how and why the past is recalled in cinema. Additionally, the course discusses the theory of nostalgia and how it changed throughout the 20th century.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £60.00 - Movements in art: SurrealismCourse start date: Tue 5 Jul 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayExplore the art and artists of Surrealism from their origins in the political and psychological upheaval of Post-World War I Paris to their widespread influence on 20th century art and culture.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £42.00 - Origins of the Goddess in Ancient IndiaCourse start date: Tue 5 Jul 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Vaughan PilikianThe Goddess is a figure of great mystery in premodern India. Mostly absent in the ancient period, she arises seemingly from nowhere to become Shakti, a dangerous and powerful divinity of central importance in medieval Shaivism. How might we begin to explain her origins? It seems that there may be evidence for a goddess cult in the material traces of the Indus Valley civilisation that predates the establishment of Vedic society. Might the Goddess be part of a Dravidian tradition of very great antiquity that somehow infiltrated the Indo-European? Or is her absence from our earliest textual sources overstated? Is it not the Goddess who appears as Night in the middle of the Mahabharata when the Kaurava warrior Ashvatthaman is about to slaughter his enemies in their sleep? And might the obscure and troubling ritual of the Ashvamedha shed some light on the sacred significance of female agency in the maintenance of Vedic sovereignty? This lecture will seek to address some of these challenging but fascinating questions.Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £10.00 - Reading and writing women in the ancient world: focus on writingCourse start date: Tue 5 Jul 2022
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Justin MurrayHistorical fiction about the Greek and Roman worlds is perennially popular with readers, and with the releases of books like Circe, The Children of Jocasta, and Electra, the new sub-genre of fiction exploring myths and legends has never been stronger. How are the female figures of these stories presented as relevant and accessible? And, for writers of historical fiction, how do we write accounts of these women in ways that draw out interesting new facets of their myths, or let readers see female figures they know already as if for the first time?
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £10.00 - Focus on: Cornelia ParkerCourse start date: Tue 5 Jul 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Chantal CondronDiscover the work of Cornelia Parker, one of the most engagingly inventive contemporary artists working in Britain today. Turner Prize nominee and Royal Academician, her multi-disciplinary practice embraces sculpture, installation, embroidery, photography and printmaking.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £42.00
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