Explore History, Culture & Writing

Continue to learn Cuneiform, which will allowing you to explore the words and world of the ancient Persians.



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

This course will introduce students to exciting initiatives in twenty-first century cultural discourse that attempt to reconceptualise what an ecological consciousness might be or feel like. Drawing on theoretical and literary texts, films, performance art, and political activism, we will explore radical ways of rethinking and reinhabiting our relations with more-than-human worlds, and how they open new possibilities for living on a damaged planet.

Explore some important names in Black British Literature – from Booker-winning novelist Bernadine Evaristo to T.S. Eliot Award-winning poet Roger Robinson, through to new and exciting work by Okechukwu Nzelu, who was longlisted for the 2023 Jhalak Prize, and non-fiction by Zadie Smith. Read, analyse and discuss this literature in context to earlier examples of writing by Black people in Britain, including pioneering feminist, poet, playwright, and broadcaster Una Marson and novelist and short fiction writer, Sam Selvon.



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: Agnes Varda, where for one day only, we will watch and discuss a film directed by this iconic and influential filmmaker. A development from our existing Cultureplex Ciné-Club courses and taking its cue from the famous Parisian Ciné-club set up by the celebrated critic and writer, André Bazin, this incarnation of the film club will offer an opportunity not only to have a taste of what the full Cine-Club course (running throughout next year) has to offer, but it will also allow for the viewing of a Varda film, followed by detailed discussion and debate. The film will be introduced, placed in both its cinematic, cultural and historic context as well as being situated within Varda’s body of work. 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.

This is the decade when television really took off, when I Love Lucy premiered on a Monday night in October 1951, followed by Milton Berle as “Mr. Television” on Tuesdays. Everyone went out to buy a TV set. How could Hollywood compete with this free home entertainment? Biblical epics and Ben-Hur was one answer. On the Waterfront (1954) to Some Like It Hot (1959) was another. The fifties was the beginning of the end for the business model of the studio-era, a golden age in place since the 1920s. However,



Hollywood reacted by producing some of the finest and most enduring films in its history as it slowly began to find newer, younger audiences for James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Coming-of-age indeed! So was television, as it produced some of its finest programmes. It seemed like every week a new show or a new genre: Sgt. Bilco, Playhouse 90, Edward R. Murrow, Walt Disney Presents, Route 66—and all in prime time.



(Also see related courses on 50s Westerns, Musicals and Film Noir).



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

Continue to discover hieroglyps and their fascinating history. Suitable for those who have already completed the introductory class at the British Museum.



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

Have a taste of exploring the ancient Athenian stage, and how they still speak to us about the challenges we face today.



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