Reading Paintings
This course is fully booked. Please contact us if you would like to be added to the waiting list for any cancellations. Explore the links between art and literature, from the Mona Lisa to The Lady of Shalott. We will … More details …
Paris 1925: The Birth of Art Deco and Modernism
This course is fully booked. Please contact us if you would like to be placed on a waiting list for any cancellations. A thoroughly French affair, the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale Des Arts Decoratifs et Industrials Moderne was dominated by … More details …
Selected novels of Thomas Hardy
This six week course will look at two novels by Thomas Hardy. Starting with The Mayor of Casterbridge (1866) we will consider concepts including ideas of tradition and modernity, time and history, the urban and the rural and ideas of … More details …
Modern Scottish Poetry
In this course we will explore the range of locations and contexts that have inspired the rich tradition of poetry in Scotland. From the islands of Orkney to urban Edinburgh and Glasgow, both male and female poets from very diverse … More details …
Robert and Clara Schumann
It’s one of the greatest love stories in western classical music – Robert and Clara Schumann. But how did this archetypal romantic relationship contribute to the musical developments and intentions of the nineteenth century? During the day we’ll explore the … More details …
Great Spanish Masters: El Greco, Velázquez, Goya
El Greco was born in Crete, but later painted in Italy and then Madrid and Toledo. His highly dramatic and expressionistic art was not appreciated in his own time, but much regarded in later centuries. His altarpieces and religious themes … More details …
Shadow Appliqué
This course will not be running on this date but we hope to offer it again later in the year. Shadow Appliqué is a stylised appliqué technique and is also known as Shadow Quilting. The subject matter is usually flora … More details …
Did the Berlin Wall Ever Fall
A blow-by-blow account of the most radical, unexpected and peaceful example of regime change ever witnessed, through the lens of contemporary images, videos and texts. We will consider how brave people brought down an oppressive government that, even months before … More details …
Art and architecture along the Silk Road
This course will take us on a journey in the footsteps of the merchants who travelled the Silk Road, studying some of the sites they would have seen in the first millenium when mercantile activity was at its height. We … More details …
The Natural World: owls and birdsong
Part 1 Owls: Their natural history and conservation. This 3 week course looks at Owls with British focus, as we look at their evolution, special adaptations, habitats, and individual species breakdown. We will also look at conservation of Owls. After … More details …
The Virgin and The Gypsy, Vile Bodies &, Mapp & Lucia – Portraits of the nineteen twenties?
Do these novels by DH Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh and EF Benson seem an eclectic selection? They’re three titles you might have bought in the years 1930 and 1931. Are they still relevant today? What kind of reader would you be? … 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 …
Introduction to the Arts and Crafts Movement
This course is now fully booked. Please contact us if you would like to be placed on the waiting list for any cancellations. This course will look at the origins and philosophies of the Arts and Crafts Movement, examining its … More details …
Beethoven’s Symphonies
This course is now fully booked. Please contact us if you would like to be placed on a waiting list for any cancellations. Victor Hugo once said that in the music of Beethoven, “the dreamer will recognise his dreams, the … More details …
Everything stops for Tea! A Social History of Drinking Tea
It was during the 18th century that the rituals of tea drinking were established. William Hogarth’s famous conservation pieces, recording upper middle-class life, often focused on tea drinking. In the Victorian era it was J.J. Tissot who captured the nuances … More details …