International Women's Day at City Lit
Throughout our history, City Lit has played a significant role in educating women in London. Empowerment through education, regardless of gender, has been at the centre of our activities throughout this time. Since we opened our doors, thousands of women have benefitted from City Lit’s broad and flexible courses, managing study alongside work, and other responsibilities.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, not only on Saturday 8 March but all through the coming months, we have a range of courses available which explore and celebrate the significant contributions made by women in life, society and culture.
Read more about International Women's Day at City Lit.
- In conversation with Claire AdlerCourse start date: Wed 30 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
The school of Visual Arts is pleased to launch its new talk series In conversation with… Over the course of the year, we’ll welcome an established speaker from the world of Visual Arts to speak about a subject passionate to them. Our April talk is led by Claire Adler.Full fee £5.00 Senior fee £5.00 Concession £5.00 - Art and imagination: from the Enlightenment to the Victorian ageCourse start date: Wed 30 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Emma Rose BarberStudy the art of the period from c.1750-1880 considering Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites. We look at ‘romantic’ landscape, the modern moral subject and the depiction of women. Explore the art of women artists who struggled to survive as artists in the tightly controlled world of the art academy where the woman was encouraged to be muse and model rather than creator and thinker.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - Women in Film: An IntroductionCourse start date: Wed 30 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Online
During this course, we will discuss the development of women’s cinematic modes of representation and expression, and the place of women in the film industry within the current social, political and cultural climate, from the question of gender representation to the so called ‘female gaze’. We will refer to key pioneers as well as to contemporary female filmmakers with a strong focus on cultural creative diversity.
Dr Karine Chevalier is a lecturer in Film studies. She is also a filmmaker. Her main research interests lie in the field of Transnational Cinema, French and Francophone Cinema, Visual Arts and Aesthetics, Postcolonial Studies, Intermediality, as well as Screenwriting and Filmmaking, with a specific focus on Violence and Resilience, Creative Voices, Digital Storytelling and Multiscreens, Alterities and Minorities, Moving (auto)Portraits and Masks.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - A women’s history of modern ChinaCourse start date: Sat 3 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Qiuyang ChenDiscover the untold stories and hidden legacies of women in modern China in this illuminating one-day course. Traverse time, from the late Qing Dynasty to the present, to examine how women have shaped and been shaped by social, political, and cultural currents.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - America in the 40s: culture and societyCourse start date: Tue 6 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Pauline Greene, Mark Malcomson, Dale Mineshima-Lowe, Paul Sutton, Patricia Sweeney, Ian TucknottThe bombing of Pearl Harbor brought Americans into WW2, while the European need for goods pulled the USA out of the Depression of the 30s, providing new opportunities for women, African Americans and other people of colour.
Post-War America saw a new energy, of hope but also despair. This online intertextual course explores the political, social and cultural context of 1940s America through a study of the literature, history, music, film and art of the period.
With different tutors for each specialism, the course provides a 'taster' in each subject as a gateway to further study in understanding this fascinating period in American culture and society.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Gender, Intersectionality and Women’s studiesCourse start date: Thu 8 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Michele ScottCome along with us as we explore and examine new and emerging debates around queer studies, post-feminism and the feminist backlash.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Women writing and walking: Virginia Woolf, Nan Shepherd, Rebecca Solnit, Elizabeth-Jane BurnettCourse start date: Thu 8 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamThis in-person Literature course considers the relationship between walking and writing in four innovative works of literary non-fiction: Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘Street Haunting’ (1927), Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’ (written c. 1945, first pub. 1977), Rebecca Solnit’s ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ (2006), and Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s ‘The Grassling’ (2019).Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Women in ancient RomeCourse start date: Fri 9 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: William SterlingWomen's position in the Ancient Roman world was important as they played important roles in the home, in business, in religion and even in politics. - Bad Queens of England? Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of AngoulemeCourse start date: Sat 10 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Vanessa KingEleanor failed to produce a son for Louis VII and urged her sons by Henry II to rebellion. Isabella abandoned her children by King John to start anew in France with her daughter’s fiancé. We consider their roles as queens.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £32.00 - Empresses and KhatunsCourse start date: Tue 13 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Vanessa KingTravel across Europe and the Eurasian steppe to compare and contrast the role and status of Greek empresses with Seljuk and Mongolian khatuns.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Modern Women PlaywrightsCourse start date: Wed 21 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laura BaggaleyExplore seminal modern plays by three leading women playwrights – Caryl Churchill, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Moira Buffini – who are all known for groundbreaking and innovative dramatic work.
In the company of an experienced theatre director, examine the different theatrical visions of three exciting plays.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - An introduction to the philosophy of Simone WeillCourse start date: Thu 29 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Karl WhiteIn this course we will look at aspects of the wide-ranging and intriguing philosophy of Simone Weil, one of the 20th century’s most intriguing and mysterious thinkers.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Radical Black FeminismCourse start date: Tue 3 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
This course explores radical black feminism through changing expressions of Black women’s radical practices of self-liberation and resistance to slavery, racial capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and their intersecting systems of oppression.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00 - Writing MotherhoodCourse start date: Tue 3 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rebecca JonesExplore the extraordinarily diverse world of writing about motherhood, looking at literary texts that have firmly rebuked any notions of motherhood as ‘merely’ domestic, and have instead made it the subject of serious literary writing, have explored major themes such as the body, trauma, gender, queerness, race and creativity, and have written diverse truths about the realities of motherhood. Writers include Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich and Rachel Cusk, Maggie Nelson and Ayò¿bámi Adébáyò¿.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Art and critical theory: feminism and post-colonialismCourse start date: Tue 3 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the role of critical theory within the field of art history, and learn new ways of thinking about art by focusing on feminism, post-colonial theory and the notion of the death of the author.
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