Online Culture, History & Humanities Courses
Feed your curiosity and expand your knowledge from the comfort of your home with City Lit’s online humanities courses. Whether you're passionate about the past, fascinated by global cultures, or you want to explore science and nature, our expert-led courses offer flexible learning to fit around your life.
From ancient civilisations and art history to philosophy and cultural studies, our online courses cover a wide range of humanities subjects designed to inspire and challenge you. Learn in a supportive virtual classroom with live sessions, group discussion and guidance from experienced tutors.
Our courses are open to all adults of all ages, whether you're a beginner, returning to study, or looking to explore new ideas. With a practical, engaging approach, you can build skills, gain insight and deepen your understanding — all from the comfort of your own home.
Explore our online humanities courses today and start your learning journey with City Lit.
338 courses available
Mexico: an introductory historyExplore how colonial Mexico transformed into an independent nation and how its early political struggles shaped the country we know today.
Online
Tue 8 Sep 2026Anna GrimaldiFull fee £89.00 Senior fee £89.00 Concession £58.00- History taster: mapping the Silk Road
Spices, Silks and Stories from Samarkand to Beijing!
Online
Tue 8 Sep 2026Vanessa KingFull fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Emerging languages and cultures
Learn how humans invent entirely new languages and how these new forms of communication become powerful symbols of identity.
Online
Tue 8 Sep 2026Florence Marfo, Jack Pulman-SlaterFull fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - History taster: Genghis Khan on Trial
Step into the courtroom of history and put one of the world’s most legendary-and controversial-figures under the spotlight. Was Genghis Khan a ruthless conqueror or a visionary leader who reshaped the world? In this lively taster course, you’ll take on the role of historical detective, weighing evidence and forming your own verdict on the founder of the Mongol Empire.
Online
Tue 8 Sep 2026Vanessa KingFull fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Literature tasterDo you want to explore how to go about understanding a poem? How to do a close reading of a work of fiction? Come and find out what makes a literature class at City Lit so special.
The course also presents an overview of our upcoming literature offering in fiction, poetry, drama and literary non-fiction.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Art history tasterCurious 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.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00
- A taste of philosophyHave you ever wondered what philosophy is? What do philosophers talk about? Can they tell you the meaning of life or is it just jargon and navel gazing? Come along and find out.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00
- Cult TV: Twin Peaks - The Return
When Twin Peaks ended in 1991, audiences were left with a warning: ‘I’ll see you again in 25 years’. Much of the show’s surrealism wasn’t to be taken literally, but this time showrunners David Lynch and Mark Frost made good on their word, releasing Twin Peaks: The Return a quarter century later to rapturous acclaim. This course will explore how The Return both built upon and shattered much of what the series established through contexts like reboots, streaming, and Lynch’s wider oeuvre.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Zoe CrombieFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - Flags decoded: Latin America
Discover the political symbolism and history behind the flags of Latin America.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Sebastien ArdouinFull fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - The many faces of timeDo we perceive time or the passage of events? Einstein famously considered time - or the distinction between past, present, and future - as an illusion. We examine subjective time or how we experience time, discussing the roles of memory, emotion, and narrative.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Anita KasabovaFull fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - America's world: US foreign policy in the 21st Century
US foreign policy has reshaped the world since 9/11. This course tells the story of how and why. Over six weeks, you'll trace America's wars, alliances, and rivalries from the Bush Doctrine to the present, debating the big decisions through presidential speeches and primary sources.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Dafydd TownleyFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - Tolkien on Screen
In his literary essay On Fairy Stories, J.R.R. Tolkien famously wrote that “in human art, fantasy is a thing best left to words”. Despite this claim, The Lord of the Rings is arguably one of the most profitable media franchises of the 21st century. It has inspired academy-award winning films and record-breaking TV series, and continues to generate material that resonates with new generations of fans to explore. This course will explore the history of adapting Tolkien to the cinema, considering not only what was altered or left behind in attempts to turn Tolkien’s vast mythology into the stuff of popular cinema, but what might also have been enhanced as a result.
(Dr.) Alexander Sergeant is an award-winning film historian and theorist. His varied research interests include the history of popular culture, particularly within the US, and the intersection between film and philosophy. He is the author of Encountering the Impossible: The Fantastic in Hollywood Fantasy Cinema (2021), and co-editor ofFantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums & Genres (2018). He is the co-founder of the popular website Fantasy-Animation.org and co-host of the Fantasy/Animation podcast.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Alex SergeantFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - What is Social Anthropology: The birth of the discipline 19th-20th CenturyThis ‘What is Social Anthropology?’ course, will introduce you to the 19thC birth of the discipline, an understanding of cross-cultural human behaviour and the similarities and differences between societies on a global and local level.
Online
Mon 14 Sep 2026Yasmin HalesFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - The big questions we face: a taste of politics and economicsBorders, conflicts, citizenship, elections, activism and global politics. We see these topics on the news every day. Some seem connected, others less so. Join our politics taster to get perspective and an overview of our politics courses.
Online
Tue 15 Sep 2026Caglar EzikogluFull fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema: Ozu, Kurosawa and Mizoguchi
This course examines the transformative period of Japanese cinema during its so-called Golden Age (from late 1940s to early 1960s), a time when Japan’s traditional film studio system was at its peak, and several iconic directors, including Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi, were making their most iconic films. We will discuss, analyse, and contextualise several of these directors’ films, as well as look at films by other directors of that period, such as Mikio Naruse and Masaki Kobayashi, and more. We will consider the socio-political and film industry contexts which shaped the films, including the cultural meanings behind the samurai genre, the post-war Occupation of Japan by Allied Forces, and the international impact of Japanese cinema on global filmmaking.
Online
Tue 15 Sep 2026Jean-Baptiste de VaulxFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £239.00 Concession £155.00
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