Explore Culture, History & Humanities Courses

April 1943, some 40,000 starving people were still incarcerated in terrible conditions within the Warsaw Ghetto. A few hundred among them – predominantly young people – led an armed rebellion against the Nazis. This course explores the incredible story of their uprising but also reveals the background of Warsaw's vibrant but increasingly endangered Jewish life in the decades before the uprising. It describes the many forms of resistance that took place after the Nazi invasion, highlights key individuals who played a role, and provides an opportunity to reflects on different aspects of this tragic but inspiring episode during the Holocaust.

This is a year-long introduction to Sumerian, the oldest attested language on earth. A good reason to learn Sumerian is to gain access to a large body of little-known, very ancient and truly fascinating literature. including the Descent of Inanna, in which the goddess of love (later known as Ishtar) attempts to take control of the underworld, and the earliest fragments of the stories surrounding the epic hero Bilgames (called Gilgamesh by the Assyrians).

Explore the art of France from the medieval to the early 19th century and enrich your knowledge of the country’s history, geography, and culture. Beyond paintings and sculptures, the artistic treasures studied will also include Carolingian illuminations, Romanesque frescoes, and the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte.

The saying 'No Brain, No Pain' is hardly controversial. But is having an experience or—indeed—entertaining a thought nothing else than neural activity? In this course we will look at this and some related philosophical questions. 

‘Our old possessions are homesick for the street’ - the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote this line after the Russian Revolution when he was expecting, like many middle-class Russians, to be forced to move home yet again. His wry sense of humour kept him going. We will explore how some great poets responded to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and its Communist aftermath in Eastern Europe, often with wit and humour, and always with courage in difficult times.

Who controls the future of AI? Explore the politics, power and global inequalities behind artificial intelligence and debate what’s at stake for democracy, human rights and society in a rapidly changing world.