Explore History, Culture & Writing

Every picture tells a story, but what about the frame around it? Find out how picture frames can tell us more about the artworks they surround.



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

Great poetry and prose begin when the writer puts the right words in the right places. Learn how and why the rules and conventions of language matter in this new course, which combines creative writing with a review of essential points of grammar.



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

A crash course in essay writing – beginnings, middles and ends. Suitable for students on A level and access courses or undergraduates.



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

Fit creative writing into your busy day: a relaxed, informal rolling programme for writers of all levels of experience who enjoy being thrown new ideas and experimenting with poetry and prose.



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

Curious about art history? Join us for this taster session where we explore different ways into visual art and its histories, from the ancient to the contemporary.



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

Build fantastical worlds, fill them with compelling characters and learn how to structure innovative plotlines in this perfect introduction for those with a passion for fantasy.



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

Would you like to write a picture book text for young children? This course is designed for children's writers and for illustrators wishing to write their own stories; a starter course to develop both your ideas and your technique.



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

Explore the work of three radical artists whose work and practice defied convention in modern art from the 1920s to 1960s. Discover how each artist challenged and transcended society’s expectations of being a ‘muse’ by living freely and making art in a variety of media, from painting and sculpture to collage, photography and performance.

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks (and throughout the rest of the academic year), we will watch and discuss film. Taking its cue from the famous Parisian ciné-club set up by the celebrated critic and writer, André Bazin, ‘the single thinker most responsible for bestowing on cinema the prestige both of an artform and of an object of knowledge’, and the man who foresaw the emergence of film studies as a legitimate discipline of academic study, our contemporary incarnation of the film club will offer a curated series of films for detailed study, discussion and debate. Each film will be introduced, placed in both its cinematic, cultural and historic context. 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.