Courses in London & Online

What do we know? How do we know it? What are the limits of knowledge? Join this course to explore the area of Kant’s philosophy which focuses on his theory of knowledge.

This course will introduce and discuss two novels by eminent author, Muriel Spark- Memento Mori (1959) and The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960). Her writing wilfully upends notions of conformity and acts as a disrupter to accepted conventions. Instead, ‘Spark beckons us to encounter the stranger’ (Marilyn Reizbaum). Playfully disrupting passive readers and stretching comfort zones, Spark’s work provides a space to access unaccustomed outlooks that make us rethink our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world. Instead of unconsciously going with the flow, she awakens us to life’s stranger things.

Still-life paintings usually represent ordinary things, often small and arranged on an indoor surface, without human presence. Long regarded in western art as the lowliest subject or “genre”, one that only required technical skill rather than imagination, still lifes are now considered some of the most charming and best loved paintings and can contain intriguing meanings that repay close study.

Explore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?

Join us to explore two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, his tragedy King Lear, and his late ‘romance’, The Tempest. We’ll consider the connections – and differences - between these works, thinking about Shakespeare’s use of genre and language, the historical contexts, changing critical perspectives, and aspects of the plays in performance.

Explore the story of how Indian painted and printed cottons became an important trade commodity for the Western domestic market, and the far-reaching impact of their design and manufacture.

Are you curious about reading contemporary global literature? Would you like to understand what we mean by the ‘global novel’, reading across cultures and national borders? This in-college course will introduce you to the study of global literature through reading three brilliant 21st century global novels: Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, Rana Dasgupta’s Tokyo Cancelled and Julie Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic.

String quartets developed new musical forms and ensured success for many composers, whilst allowing an intimate conversation with their audiences. We trace the quartets of the masters from Haydn and Mozart to Shostakovich and beyond.