Cultural Studies Short Courses in London and Online

Romantic anti-capitalism is a critique of the present where the negative effects of capitalism are felt across all areas of life. The discontent can be either reactionary or progressive and expresses itself at both ends of the political spectrum. This worldview is contradictory and ambiguous at its core, but in all its guises, the romantic critique is heavily charged with emotion. The sentiment has its origin in the epoch of Romanticism at the turn of the 19th century, but doesn’t it sound strangely familiar to us in 2025?

The humanities - academic disciplines that study human society and culture, including literature, visual and performing arts, philosophy and history - are under threat of funding cuts across all sectors of education. Their “cultural capital” is waning alongside. The focus, instead, is on subjects that promise immediate gain in the form of guaranteed employment and economic growth for the investing state. But does such an approach pay off in the long run? As many theorists argue, the humanities teach vital skills of how to be a responsible citizen in a globalised world.

Beauty is as a sensory experience that seems to privilege sight over other forms of perception. It is linked to taste, distinct from objective fact. There is a hierarchy between the active act of looking, enjoying beauty, and the passivity of being looked at and deemed beautiful. This 4-week online course engages critically with the theme of beauty, exploring it as a cultural phenomenon in past and present. With both gender and sexuality playing a crucial role for the concept, we’ll investigate beauty’s relationship with power through a feminist lens.