Sylvia Townsend Warner: Writer, Feminist, Musicologist and Political Activist
This day course will look at Warner’s life, loves and affiliations. She was a writer of great imaginative scope and variety, encompassing fiction, poetry, journalism, biography and an excellent, still very readable, guidebook to Somerset (1946). We shall pay … More details …
Republicanism, Civil War and Francoism in Spain
This course will focus on Spain in the years 1930–45, a dramatic period for Spaniards which spanned years of democracy and dictatorship. We will cover the changing politics, culture and society of a nation that underwent the turbulence of the … More details …
Poetry Matters
In 2002 Neil Astley of Bloodaxe Books published Staying Alive, the first in a series of international poetry anthologies, giving it the subtitle ‘real poems for unreal times’. With 500 poems to choose from, this makes an excellent source for … More details …
Elizabeth Gaskell
This course will study two novels by Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskell was a hugely successful and popular nineteenth-century novelist who used her fiction to explore issues surrounding industrialisation, Chartism, the condition of England, position of women, class barriers and prejudice and … More details …
Tragedy and Triumph: The story of polar exploration
Few stories in exploration are as fascinating as the early attempts to find a way through the North-West Passage and the expeditions to be first at the North and South Poles. In the most hostile environments on earth, men perished, … More details …
Fascist art and architecture in Europe: exponents and opponents
A study day that will weave together the story of Fascist art and architecture in Italy, Germany and Spain in the first half of the 20th century. We will examine examples of architecture, sculpture, poster art and paintings and will … More details …
The Architecture of the Country House
No other country has such a variety of country houses, from the Tudor splendour of Montacute to the Baroque grandeur of Blenheim Palace. But their design can often be baffling. Why have such large houses so many interconnected rooms and … More details …
Religion and Ritual in Ancient Rome
We shall be looking at Roman state religion, including the Olympian gods “imported” from the Greeks and also the “home-grown” deities with the rituals and ceremonies enacted by the Romans to both honour and placate their gods. If time permits, … More details …
Doris Hatt and Evelyn Dunbar
Doris Hatt spent most of her life in Clevedon. A fine artist who kept apart from the establishment, she engaged with European Modernism and the use of strong colour. Her life story is equally fascinating including her politics, life partner … More details …
Three Thomases: politics, faith and power in the Tudor court
This course will focus on the lives of three men with immense power in 16th century England which has been retained in their legacies and memories through the centuries. Thomas Wolsey, the Alter Rex; Thomas More, canonised by the Catholic Church … More details …
Objects of wonder
In the Renaissance, kings and dukes, wealthy merchants and rich scholars developed a passion for collecting and studying exotic objects, animals and – sometimes – human beings. Prepare to be amazed as we unlock cabinets of curiosities and study prints … More details …
Mozart: a life in choral music
Mozart is a legendary composer whose legacy and influence continues to impact on our lives today. Join us as we take a unique look at Mozart’s life through the lens of his writing for choir, from his earliest works to … More details …
Discussing short stories
Are these stories a form of armchair time-travel? We begin our journey in 1706, with Daniel Defoe, and finish it with Anthony Trollope, in 1864, discussing one, possibly two, stories per session from The Penguin Book of the British Short … More details …
How big is infinity and other questions
Many people approach mathematics with fear and trembling. They remember it as a subject from school that was boring, pointless and difficult to understand. This course will take you down some mathematically less travelled roads. In particular, we shall look … More details …
Modern European Poetry
Since the second World War a number of poets have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. These include the Polish poets, Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, the Italian poets, Salvatore Quasimodo, and Eugenio Montale. And many European poets have been … More details …