Come along with us as we explore and examine new and emerging debates around queer studies, post-feminism and the feminist backlash.

This 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).

Women'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.

Eleanor 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.

Explore 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.

In 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.

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.

Explore 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¿.

Explore 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.

In this taster explore how the French Revolution opened up opportunities for female political engagement and action. Through an overview and case studies we will try to answer why the significant social and political gains made by French women in the revolutionary era were to prove transitory.

This one day course will consider Celine Sciamma’s importance as a filmmaker by exploring in some detail a number of her key films from her debut Water Lillies (2007), to films such as Tomboy (2011), her breakthrough Girlhood (2014), and her more recent popular successes Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) and Petite Maman (2021).







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.

Take a romp through history exploring the highs and lows of being a royal mistress. You may have heard of the Fair Rosamund or Diane de Poitiers, but what about The Maypole and The Elephant?