courses in Art History, Film Studies, Literature, and Science and Nature. Our tutors are experts in their fields and experienced educators; many have published, teach in universities or share their expertise in the media. Tutors share their knowledge and passion through presentations, readings, interactive discussion and exercises, analysis, and other activities. Many students return to take more courses, telling us they enjoy being part of our City Lit Learning community. Our popular courses often sell out quickly, so we invite you to browse and book your place now.Read less
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- Influential Women of the Islamic Empires
A whistle stop tour of almost 1300 years of Islamic Empires, meeting some of the remarkable women that created Islamic history along the way.
Keeley Street
Sun 11 Oct 2026Tas RahmanFull fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 
Hidden voices, brilliant minds: women who shaped ancient philosophyThis course shines a light on the remarkable achievements of women philosophers, examining their ground-breaking ideas and enduring influence on philosophy, science, and culture, and recognising thinkers whose intellectual contributions have too often been overlooked.
Keeley Street
Mon 12 Oct 2026Cristina PaternoFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00- The mirror of nature: art and culture in 17th century Europe
The 17th century produced some of the greatest artists of all time: Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquezand Bernini to name but a few. Explore the work of these key artists and understand the history, styles and ideas that shaped the century.
Online
Mon 12 Oct 2026Leslie PrimoFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - Making it Modern: A Survey of 20th century poetry
What makes a poet modern? What is the difference between modern poetry and modernist poetry? How has modern poetry informed the work of poets writing today? Come and explore the exciting range of poetry written in the twentieth century in a supportive and energising group context.
Online
Mon 12 Oct 2026Suzannah V. EvansFull fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £84.00 - Society beyond the Textbook
Question what you know, explore what shapes society, and see the world beyond the textbook.
Keeley Street
Tue 13 Oct 2026Michele ScottFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £151.00 Concession £123.00 - Film Genre: Screwball Comedies
In the 1930s, audiences were introduced to a new type of comedy style blending Hollywood social commentary with a battle-of-the-sexes. What was new? Eccentric romance, rapid-fire dialogue, gender relations as near combat, and farcical slapstick-a cycle of films known as screwball comedies, a distinct time capsule of the decade and one of the most transcendent genres of the classical Hollywood period. More modern films like the homage of What’s Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich) or Silver Linings Playbook (2012 David O. Russell) attempted the speed & spirit of films like Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks) or The Lady Eve (1941 Preston Sturges) but screwball’s effervescence is difficult to recapture. In O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) the Coen Brothers attempted a sequel to Preston Sturges’ great Hollywood satire, Sullivan’s Travels (1941), but screwball is tied to a time and a place. The time was the Great Depression, when audiences needed escapism. The place was Hollywood and an industry making full use of talking pictures, finding writers from the New York stage (or Dorothy Parker’s Round Table) who would seize the opportunity to get smart talk into the films. But over and above all that I think the real reason for screwball was Hollywood’s need to fast-talk its way around the new Production Code censorship of 1934. No coincidence then that in that same year Frank Capra made It Happened One Night (1934) and Howard Hawks directed Twentieth Century (1934). Both shared an unorthodox portrayal of romance and cynicism. A new genre was off and running.
Keeley Street
Wed 14 Oct 2026John WischmeyerFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £151.00 Concession £123.00 - Mind and Code: Crime in Context
Look beyond the individual offender and uncover the social, political, and economic forces behind crime and harm.
Keeley Street
Wed 14 Oct 2026Michele ScottFull fee £159.00 Senior fee £127.00 Concession £103.00 - Virgil's Aeneid reading group (in translation)Discover one of the greatest works of Latin literature.
Online
Wed 14 Oct 2026Justin MurrayFull fee £159.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £159.00 - Victorian Soho: Sex, Shopping, Tourism and Anarchy
The West End was a heady mix of glamorous shopping emporia, political refugees from Europe, street-based and brothel-based prostitution, and the general public just enjoying a day or evening ‘Up West’. Join Dr. Sarah Wise to learn more on this 2 hour guided walk of Soho.
Off Site
Wed 14 Oct 2026Sarah WiseFull fee £39.00 Senior fee £31.00 Concession £25.00 - Philosophy and aesthetics
We explore key contemporary forms of aesthetics through the writings of renowned French philosophers Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Rancière, and Jean-François Lyotard. The course critically examines how art, sensation, and politics intersect in a changing world of perception and media.
Keeley Street
Thu 15 Oct 2026Daniel WeizmanFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Some like it Indie: How the Independents Revolutionised Postwar HollywoodWhat do The Apartment, The Great Escape, West Side Story, In the Heat of the Night, The Pink Panther, The Magnificent Seven, Fiddler on the Roof and Some Like it Hot have in common? They were all produced by one small production company, run by three brothers, as the studio system was replaced by the new independent producers. Most Hollywood history fetishizes the 1970s as the decade in which the movies finally came of age. But this course looks back to the late ‘50s and ‘60s and zooms in on a single independent production company, the Mirisch Company, to understand the seismic shift that transformed Hollywood - not only in how films were produced but also in terms of the subjects and styles of the films themselves.
Keeley Street
Fri 16 Oct 2026Paul KerrFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - The London 'Lowlife' in Fiction: 1889-1907We will explore the themes of poverty, politics, gender and ethnicity in London at the end of the 19th century/start of the 20th century through the eyes of writers of fiction, but also through the testimony of their non-fiction contemporaries - social investigators, government officials, journalists and philanthropists.
Keeley Street
Fri 16 Oct 2026Sarah WiseFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Can't pay? Won't Pay! A history of the Poll Tax
The course examines what has been described as the most celebrated disaster in post-war domestic British politics - the Poll Tax of 1988-94.
Keeley Street
Sat 17 Oct 2026David IngledewFull fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - An introduction to JainismThis course is an introduction to Jain philosophy, with a particular emphasis on its relevance to environmentalism.
Keeley Street
Sat 17 Oct 2026Ketan VariaFull fee £89.00 Senior fee £71.00 Concession £58.00 - European empires in AfricaJoin us for an introduction to the major themes of imperial history in the past 200 years of African history, where we will contextualise many of the trends and challenges in the continent today and view Africa in a new light.
Online
Sat 17 Oct 2026Sunday Abraham OgunodeFull fee £189.00 Senior fee £151.00 Concession £123.00
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