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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- Understanding the dynamics of the Middle East: authoritarianism and democracyCourse start date: Thu 15 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Caglar EzikogluJoin Dr. Çaglar Ezikoglu to exlore the dynamics of authoritarianism and democracy in the Middle East, analysing key political structures, movements, and their impacts on regional stability.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Ways into poetry: intensive
Course start date: Tue 20 May 2025 (and 5 other dates)Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alice FrecknallAre you just starting to write poetry? This shorter version of our introductory Ways into poetry course offers an opportunity to experiment with language and a variety of poetic devices. Discover the key elements of a poem in a friendly and interactive class.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £75.00 - Spectacles of the Ancient worldCourse start date: Thu 22 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Michael BloomfieldThis course explores some of the most elaborate and powerful displays of the Graeco-Roman world. Designed to entertain, inform, and elicit support, often at times of great political or religious significance, they were unforgettable, and have long exercised an influence on our own understanding of the nature of power.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £64.00 - An introduction to the philosophy of Simone WeillCourse start date: Thu 29 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Karl WhiteIn this course we will look at aspects of the wide-ranging and intriguing philosophy of Simone Weil, one of the 20th century’s most intriguing and mysterious thinkers.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - 'The future is now', an introduction to video art Course start date: Thu 5 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the early history of video art, its rise as a medium and its significance as a contemporary art practice. We focus on the influential video works from the 1960s-1980s.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £49.00 Concession £32.00 - Political Parties in Modern British PoliticsCourse start date: Thu 5 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ian McGarvieThis course explores the historical origins, key developments in leadership and ideas, key policy and its foundations, recent electoral success, and support within the wider community of the major political parties in contemporary Britain. Join us to discuss!Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Section 28 and Collective Memory: LGBTQ+ Activism, Education, and ResistanceCourse start date: Thu 12 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Syeda AliExplore the history of Section 28 (1988-2003) in three online workshops. We examine its political origins and effects and how it shaped LGBTQ+ rights and collective memory in Britain.al history we ask questions of what we can learn from the personal testimony of individuals and what unique insights this gives us.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £49.00 Concession £32.00 - Literary Landscapes: Black London in Caleb Nelson’s Open Water and Sam Selvon’s The Lonely LondonersCourse start date: Thu 26 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Black London is shifting and ever-evolving. This course explores how Costa award winning Caleb Nelson’s novel ‘Open Water’ and the great 1950’s classic of immigrant fiction, Sam Selvon’s ‘The Lonely Londoners’ reimagined our multicultural metropolis.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £79.00 - French history: The Dreyfus Affair and its legacyCourse start date: Thu 18 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sebastien ArdouinMiscarriage of justice, anti-Semitism, reason of state and ultimately triumph of justice. There is more to the Dreyfus Affair though, an event that polarised French society like few before and is at the heart of modern France.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Shakespeare's Women: Hamlet, Macbeth and As You Like ItCourse start date: Thu 2 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamThis Literature course will look at three of Shakespeare’s female characters: Rosalind (As You Like It), Ophelia (Hamlet) and Lady Macbeth (Macbeth). We will consider their wit, madness and ambition, exploring Shakespeare’s language, the historical context, and the plays in performance.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - The essentials of British politicsCourse start date: Thu 23 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ian McGarvieThis essentials course will give you the foundations of the political system in the United Kingdom, whilst also enabling you to use your newly acquired knowledge to discuss and debate current affairs matters in real time.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - The Vichy RegimeCourse start date: Thu 30 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sebastien ArdouinBorn out of the defeat of 1940, the Vichy regime is one of the darkest periods in French history. Even if Marshal Pétain pretended he was sheltering the country from excessive demands by the Nazis, the government and administration offered themselves to the service of the enemy, often for the worst.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - 20th to 21st Century War Poetry: British and InternationalCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - Understanding the different political systems of the UKCourse start date: Thu 20 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ian McGarvieWant to understand how the different political systems across the United Kingdom works? Join our tutor Ian McGarvie to explore!Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - The French Resistance during the Second World WarCourse start date: Thu 20 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sebastien ArdouinBehind the post-war myth, what was the French Resistance? Who resisted against Nazi occupation and the collaborationist Vichy regime, and why? How did de Gaulle emerge as its leader and used it to strengthen his power?Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00
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