Explore History, Culture & Writing

This course aims to explore the multifaceted relationship between Africa and the Classical



world, highlighting Africa's significant contributions to the Classical world.

Come on a discovery of Patristics, where you'll read, analyse and discuss the texts written by the Church Fathers.



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

Two (or more!) heads are better than one! Collaborate with others to create short pieces of theatre, using everyone's skills and ideas to tell collective stories.

“The more beautiful everything is, the more it will hurt without you”—Gene Kelly as An American in Paris (1951) singing to Leslie Caron. Happy endings are hard won in fifties’ musicals and The End is where they were heading. MGM was the studio of musicals in the 1950s. During this decade other studios presented only occasional musicals. The musical was big business for Hollywood in the 1950s and so was the western, so bringing them together made sense. Annie Get Your Gun had been a big success for MGM so Warner Bros. decided to get a piece of the action with Calamity Jane (1953 David Butler with Doris Day). Judy Garland was sacked by MGM in 1951, then followed Joan Crawford to Warner Brothers where she staged a big comeback in, fittingly, A Star is Born (1954 George Cukor). Oklahoma (1955 Fred Zinnemann) and Carousel (1956 Henry King) from 20th Century Fox introduced Shirley Jones. And don’t forget Leonard Bernstein’s score for On the Waterfront (1954) that anticipated West Side Story (1961). (See related courses on Fifties Melodrama and Film Noir and 50 Films From the ‘50s: Hollywood’s Last Stand).