Summer at City Lit

Do you want to sound more confident, grounded, self-assured and assertive? Improve your vocal skills through a series of exercises that will support you to become more vocally confident, expressive and dynamic without appearing arrogant.

Ranging from sixteenth century love sonnets via bawdy Restoration verse to a Victorian eroticised poetic narrative, this course examines how the language of love and desire, and the poetic representations of gendered bodies, provide an idiom that can be used to express both conservative and more subversive cultural ideas.

Come and consolidate your upper-intermediate French. You will develop your listening skills and practise your oral French by taking part in discussions, debates on news items and cultural events.

An introduction to the art of Louise Bourgeois, its feminism, both erotic and abject. We explore Bourgeois as a sculptor, printmaker and performance artist, looking at how she was influenced by psychology and biography.

Aesop’s fables have been used through history to clarify important issues within society. Investigate their perseverance through history and why they continue to be relevant today.

Learn to perform ensemble numbers from popular Broadway and West End shows, from standard classics to modern musicals. Gain confidence in performing as a group, and enjoy singing solo within an ensemble.

Join us for an exploration of the ways we experience global literatures of our time. Inter-generational memory is the focus of two prize-winning novels, The Vegetarian (2007) by Han Kang and The Island of Missing Trees (2021) by Elif Shafak. Unearthing the painful truths of history in the context of culturally/politically divided Korea and Cyprus, the authors deal delicately, and brutally, with love, the environment, patriarchy, resistance and the metamorphosis of the female body.

Study how to improvise in popular music. These two practical sessions are for players of any instrument. Get to grips with improvisation in this exploration of common scales and approaches to improv in pop, rock, blues, folk and jazz. We’ll look at blues scales, pentatonics, extension notes and more to help you get the most out of your improvisation.