Writing Courses & Workshops Online & in London

This class explores the wonderful world of 19th century American literature, reading classic texts to broaden knowledge of literary history through a range of influential novels, stories, and poems. Among the writers considered in their literary, political, and cultural contexts will be Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Mark Twain and Kate Chopin.

What is chamber music, and how is it different from a Symphony or an opera? What sort of musicians would play chamber music and which periods of music history does it come?

Is The Matrix a science-fiction movie starring Keanu Reeves, or the most influential work of philosophy of the last fifty years? Who is more nihilistic, Humphrey Bogart or Frederic Nietszche? In this course, we will examine the relationship between film and philosophy, engaging with current debates in film theory and in wider society. We will consider whether it is appropriate to label film as a form of philosophy, how film acts as philosophy, and the ways in which our experiences of watching film helps up to think through ideas about the human experience that have received attention amongst centuries of philosophical literature. Is film merely entertainment, or is it our most important form of philosophy?

Covering the early 19th century to the early 20th century, we will examine the East End and analyse how it was portrayed in works of fiction, thinking about how imaginative fiction and historical fact intertwine to create local legend.

Passion, marriage, crime, class, and murder: these are just some of the key issues at play in the three exhilarating French novels we will discuss in this online course. Focusing on George Sand’s Indiana (1832), Balzac’s Père Goriot (1835) and Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1868), we’ll explore French literary style and the influence of serialisation on sensation fiction and these author’s depictions of social class, romance, and realism.

Have a taste of exploring the ancient Athenian stage, and how they still speak to us about the challenges we face today.

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