Explore our courses to find the right one for you. Personalise your learning with one of our evening courses.
If you have any queries about our courses, please contact lifelonglearning@soton.ac.uk
Arts and Humanities Courses
Explore the exciting world of human existence at the University of Southampton, through our Lifelong Learning evening courses.
We are offering a variety of weekly courses which will give you insights into some fascinating topics. Quench your thirst for knowledge in Art, History, Philosophy, Literature, Archaeology or Poetry. Courses last for 6 weeks and are suitable for beginners with no prior knowledge of the subject.
Please see below a short summary of each course. To book your place, please visit our Online Store.
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Fiction Essentials: Writing the City
This creative writing course invites you to engage with urban space in your writing: to register its rhythms, map its corners, and think deeply about how the landscape of the city shapes your feelings and experiences. Each week, we’ll explore a set of texts that give voice to the city in different ways, from the flâneurs who strolled the streets of Paris to the Windrush-generation novelists documenting their experiences of London.
These texts will act as prompts for your own writing, with exercises to help you experiment with form, voice, and subject. Throughout the course you will be encouraged to draw on your own real or virtual experiences of straying through the city’s parks and streets, and recording the changing moods, atmospheres, sounds and scenery.
Tutor: Jessica Payn
Dates: Tuesday 7 May to Tuesday 11 June 2024
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Online
Historical Archaeology: A Doorway onto Other Time
This course will demonstrate how we can tell new stories of the human past, looking beyond established narratives to engage with previously unstudied people and communities. You will be encouraged to explore beyond conventional areas of study such as capitalism, or the European elite, and instead investigate a more complex, multi-faceted record.
You will learn how archaeologists use storytelling and narrative to unlock and relate events from the past. Archaeological studies today encourage us to challenge traditional sources and even revisit long-standing interpretations. You will see how this is made possible by a physical record of the past obtained from archaeological investigations. This is something the study of traditional sources and evidence from History is unable to imitate. You will be encouraged to draw on resources from any area of study, such as prehistory, art, literature, to find that information and tell those stories.
Tutor: Jack Pink
Dates: Wednesday 1 May to Wednesday 5 June 2024
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Avenue Campus
Histories & Contexts of Cinema: Spaghetti westerns - the good, the bad and the beautiful
Initially criticized for being a cheap imitation of the American western, the 1960s Italian western subverted and revolutionized the genre. Introducing irony, cynicism, black humour, sadistic violence, cartoonish action, and leftist overtones, it became a world phenomenon. It kept on surprising the public with its gradually increasing eccentricity, while also mirroring its troubled historical times, defined by growing crime and unemployment rates, riots, police brutality and corruption scandals.
This course evaluates the spaghetti western in all its glory. It focuses on its unusual evolution and historical context, but also enormous flexibility which resulted in the production of truly peculiar hybrids, combining the western with the elements of gothic horror or the kung-fu film. Discussing the most famous and the most obscure spaghetti westerns in equal matters, and using numerous film extracts to illustrate the analysed content, this course is perfect for both the devoted fans of the genre and complete newcomers.
Tutor: Marcin Zembrzuski
Dates: Wednesday 24 April to Wednesday 29 May 2024
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Avenue Campus
Histories and Contexts of Cinema: Titanic and other ships on film
“I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote, I love to sail forbidden seas…”
Are you a ship lover? Starting with the RMS Titanic which departed from the port of Southampton in her maiden voyage, this course takes you on a journey into films that feature ships of various in different historical periods across cultures. From Polynesian canoes, Greek triremes and Chinese treasure ships to the 19th century iron steamers and battleship Yamato, from Noah’s Ark to the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean. We will also investigate the behind-the-scenes stories of how they are presented for the screen.
Tutor: Shuo Yang
Dates: Wednesday 15 May 2024 to Wednesday 19 June 2024
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Avenue Campus
Reflective Art Practice: Drawing, Painting, Mixed Media and Art History: Exploring the Still Life
Our Reflective Art in Practice courses examine the theory and practice behind a range of art movements with illustrated lectures looking at context and incorporating group discussion. This is followed by practical sessions which explore various artistic styles and practical techniques in drawing, painting and mixed media.
Tutor: Abi Kremer
Dates: Tuesday 23 April to Tuesday 11 June 2024.
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Highfield Campus