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- French and Russian literatureCourse start date: Tue 30 Apr 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandExplore classic texts of 19th century French and Russian literature, discussing literary style, themes, and contexts as a way of developing and sharing responses to celebrated European writing. Among the French writers examined will be Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert and Rimbaud, with our Russians including Pushkin, Lemontov, and Tolstoy.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Tutankhamun unveiledCourse start date: Tue 30 Apr 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Rosalind JanssenThe discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 caused a worldwide sensation, which led to a bout of ‘Tut-mania’. Much overlooked is the political setting: Egypt’s semi-independence from British rule that occurred in the same year. But who was Tutankhamun: how did he live and die? This course unveils the Pharaoh, his wardrobe, curse, blockbuster exhibitions, and enduring legacy.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - An introduction to the history of architectureCourse start date: Thu 2 May 2024
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Elizabeth EyresArchitecture is the one art form that we cannot avoid even if we try. It shapes our environment and the way we live our lives, so understanding why buildings look the way they do is a vital part of understanding the world around us. This introductory course will enable you to do just that by examining the development of architectural styles from Ancient Greece to the present day.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information. - The world of Bob DylanCourse start date: Thu 2 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis class explores the work of Bob Dylan, examining his song writing, musical style, and persona in the context of American cultural, political, and musical history, exploring how Dylan engages with American culture through his absorption and reworking of multifarious aspects of both historical and modern Americana.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Discovering Victorian London: empire, enterprise and educationCourse start date: Tue 7 May 2024
Location on this date: Blended (learn both online and in-person)
Tutors: Eleanor JacksonVictorian London shaped today's city. Discover the lasting legacy of the Victorian age, uncover its secrets, and meet some of the characters who created one of the world's greatest cities.
Initial lecture via zoom followed by 7 guided walks.
This course will be delivered online and in person. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information. - Classic drama: Antigone, Measure for Measure, The Country WifeCourse start date: Mon 13 May 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Jenny StevensWe will read and discuss three classic plays: Sophocles’ Antigone, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. Focusing closely on structure, language and tone, we will consider how dramatists across time have explored themes such as sexual politics, family relationships and state power through their plays, as well as considering the social, cultural and historical contexts in which they were produced.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - 'A terrible beauty is born': poetry in revolutionary timesCourse start date: Mon 10 Jun 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithIs Auden right that “poetry makes nothing happen”? We look at how poets have helped people to understand, cope with and sometimes resist oppression in revolutionary periods from the late18th century to the present.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Contemporary British and international fictionCourse start date: Wed 18 Sep 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Aamer HusseinWe explore a brief and careful selection of recent novels in English, considering aspects of literature and the lives of writers, examining the contemporary perspective from which we reread and reinterpret classic texts to bridge the gap between past and present. Writers include Edward St Aubyn, Kathy O’Shaughnessy, Hari Kunzri, Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng, and British-Palestinian Isabella Hammad.Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00 - City Lit reading group 2Course start date: Fri 22 Sep 2023 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Patricia SweeneyShare thoughts and ideas about what you are reading, with books chosen by the group. Please come to the first session with suggestions (contemporary fiction in paperback) and having read 'Trust' by Hernan Diaz. Monthly meetings take place on 22 Sept, 27 Oct, 01 Dec; 19 Jan, 23 Feb, 22 March, 26 April, 24 May and 28 June.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - 50 films from the 50s: Hollywood's last standCourse start date: Mon 23 Sep 2024 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: John WischmeyerThe 1950s was the beginning of the end for the Hollywood studio era, a golden age in place since the 1920s. The fifties are more difficult to pin down than the 1930/40s due to explosive diversity in both subject matter and cinematic technology, the profound influence of WWII, the development of European neorealism and the first signs of the French New Wave. An emphasis on teen culture emerged, represented by the brief career of James Dean. Film stars became anti-heroes. The moguls who founded Hollywood began to disappear. The studio business model was doomed. Hollywood reacted both defensively and creatively, going for broke—and producing some of the finest and most enduring films in its history, films that transformed the culture, from Sunset Blvd. (1950) to Some Like It Hot (1959)—both by Billy Wilder. From The Asphalt Jungle (1950) to The Misfits (1961)— Marilyn Monroe’s first and final films, both directed by John Huston. From Here To Eternity (1953 Fred Zinnemann) to A Place in the Sun (1951 George Stevens, part of his American trilogy). Fifties’ films reflected a darkening America. (See related courses on Fifties Musicals, Melodrama and Film Noir).Full fee £289.00 Senior fee £231.00 Concession £188.00 - Great European Short StoriesCourse start date: Tue 24 Sep 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettThe short story in Europe has characteristics all of its own. While British, Irish and American stories are rooted in psychological realism, many European writers have tended towards a more philosophical approach, reflecting the concerns of the modern age as experienced by the sensibilities of individual writers. Authors such as Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka and Albert Camus are masters of the kinds of tale which ask profound question about the nature of our existence. They are also supreme stylists capable of sustaining a gripping narrative. - It Can't Happen Here: Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth, Muriel SparkCourse start date: Tue 24 Sep 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonExplore three ground-breaking works of ‘speculative’ prose fiction, each offering a highly innovative examination of C20 American political populism. From bitter satire, unnerving dystopia, to the lightly comic, we’ll see how the texts embody genuine anxieties of authoritarianism in America. Surely,- ‘it can’t happen here’?Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - From Nonsense to the Surreal: Edward Lear to Angela CarterCourse start date: Wed 25 Sep 2024
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithSurrealism is one of the great developments of 20th century literature. It’s different from the fantasies of previous centuries (fairy and folk tales, imaginative stories set in remote parts of the world, satires, science fiction) because it expresses complex bizarre experiences that many people recognise as possibly part of themselves. It may reflect desires which are difficult to admit but are sometimes expressed with wit and humour. We explore how surrealism developed from the apparent nonsense of three 19th century English writers.Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00
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