Summer courses in humanities

Journey through the evolution of the fascinating idea of conscience over the past 2,000 years. Explore ancient and modern understandings of this universal phenomenon, drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, philosophy, theology and neuroscience.

Are we living in an age of vibes? Have recent political events such as the re-election of Donald Trump or Brexit occurred because of a “vibeshift” in popular discourse? This course analyses the use of this popular term across a range of media and texts in a quest to grasp what it denotes, why it is being mobilised right now and where we can find its roots in the history of ideas.

Catherine Berger holds a PhD in the History of Art from University College London, where she also taught for many years. She has worked as a tutor at the University of Basel and as a researcher at the University of Zurich and taught in various other institutions, including adult education and a secondary school. She has worked as an editor, written for publications and regularly translates essays and book chapters in her areas of expertise. The analysis of the relationship of cultural production to its social conditions is at the core of her work. Her interests and methods reach across disciplinary boundaries, interweaving visual culture with philosophy, sociology, political and economic theory, linguistics, literature, musicology and psychology, often with a focus on feminism, gender and theories of the maternal. A passionate teacher, Catherine works hard to create inclusive, supportive, student-centred learning environments.

This course will look, decade by decade, at the leading figures of the generation caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution whose lives and poetry together form a veritable seismograph of the unfolding tragedy. Their extraordinary interrelationships and the originality and power of their writing constitute one of the richest periods in the history of Russian Literature.

Edith Wharton and Henry James had a keen eye for a well-designed and tastefully decorated house and both brought us depictions of splendid interiors in their novels set in ‘the Gilded Age’. We’ll discuss the changing tastes at the turn of the century, and how both authors used interior decoration to reflect the moral turn of their characters and the age.

Whether you are new to poetry or an experienced reader of verse, this course will enable and enhance your enjoyment by exploring the techniques that poetry uses to affect our response and create meaning. Exploring rhythm and rhyme, voice, mood, imagery, language and allusions, we will focus on a diverse range of poetic examples to examine how this powerful form of literature works to create emotion and connection with the reader.

This course will explore the Dada movement, focusing on Duchamp and Höch as key examples, considering such issues as social and political context, theoretical interests, material experimentation, and artistic influences.

Explore the work of Van Eyck in relation to Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites more generally; consider how this 15th century painter influenced artists some 300 years later.

The experience of living in Berlin in the early 1930s had a transformative effect on the life and work of Christopher Isherwood. In this course, we will discuss Isherwood’s masterpiece, Goodbye to Berlin (1939), and his autobiography Christopher and His Kind (1976), which reveals the real people behind the characters of Sally Bowles and Otto Nowak, and shines a light on the queer culture of Berlin Isherwood was unable to write about in the 1930s.

Study sculptors from the Renaissance to the Post-Modern, including Donatello, Bernini, Canova, Rodin, Picasso and Whiteread, considering styles, materials, and techniques of key works within social and cultural contexts.

Nowadays there are so many ways to watch film - smart phones, tablets, TVs - just as there are so many different spaces in which we encounter the moving image - cinemas, galleries, our homes, to name but a few. This day-long course will broaden and deepen your critical awareness of the diverse formal and experiential possibilities of cinema, both as they have developed in the past and as they are transforming in the contemporary moment. It will do this by reflecting on two questions: ‘what is cinema?’ and ‘where is cinema?’.

What is the role of poetry ‘off the page’ in public spaces? Can a poem change the way we might re-encounter cultural history? Do statues serve as ‘informants’ from the past? We read poetry by Jackie Kay, Lemn Sissay and Dorothea Smartt commissioned for bridges, pavements, monuments, even super sewer ventilation shafts to identify the challenges, revisions and celebrations that emerge from exploring the place of poetry in public spaces.