The arts past and present
This broadly-focused course introduces you to university-level study in the arts across a range of subject areas, including history, art history, philosophy, classical studies, history of science, religious studies, music and English

Start writing family history
This 12-week online course helps you to interpret and write about family history. It offers a guide to the principles of studying history that are a foundation for more advanced historical studies. You will learn about historical sources – interpreting evidence and selecting suitable examples – and develop your appreciation and understanding of family history and the ways in which the past is remembered and represented. Using sources from different historical periods, you will investigate the changing nature of the family and, putting the principles of historical research into practice, write about your own family history.

Exploring history: medieval to modern 1400-1900
This course is a varied and wide-ranging introduction to historical study and will teach you the techniques of professional historians. It covers: fifteenth-century France, Burgundy and England during the Hundred Years’ War; the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century; the civil wars of the British Isles in the seventeenth century; slavery and serfdom in the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the development of nation states in western Europe following the French Revolution; and European imperialism in Africa.

Total War and Social Change, Europe 1914-1955
This course explores the connections between war and the significant transformation of society that took place during the first half of the twentieth century. It examines relationships between total war and social, cultural and geopolitical change – including revolution – and covers topics such as: European governments; societies and armies in 1914; the nature of warfare and differences in the conduct of the two world wars; social developments in western democracies; the holocaust and genocide; the division of Europe after 1945; the effect of war on the lives and status of women; film and propaganda; and the relationship between war, literature and the arts.

Start writing fiction
This 12-week online course provides a practical introduction to writing fiction – firing your creativity and imagination as well as equipping you with basic narrative strategies. During the course you will write two short pieces, for which your tutor will provide detailed individual feedback. You will also have the opportunity to work with your tutor, along with other students, in an online environment. You will read and learn from the works of writers as well as listening to their advice on beginning to write fiction.

Creative writing
This course presents a range of practical strategies to help you develop as a writer, from building a daily discipline to dealing with agents and publishers. It will suit new writers as well as those with more experience seeking to develop their skills. You’ll have the opportunity to write in a wide range of genres, from fiction and poetry to biography, autobiography and travel writing.

Empire 1492-1975
The six blocks of this course each focus on a particular question, from ‘What are empires?’ to ‘Why do empires end?’, considering the British Empire in detail before drawing comparisons with others, including those of France, the Netherlands, Russia, China and Spain.

Film and television history
The American films you’ll study span a broad period, from those made in the 'golden age' of Hollywood, such as Stagecoach and Now, Voyager, to Titanic and the films of the Coen Brothers. You will also study British films of the 1950s and 1960s; West German, French and Italian films since the early 1970s; and soap operas, single plays, literary adaptations, science fiction, adventure series and mini-series from the world of television.

Twentieth Century literature: texts and debates
This course takes you right to the heart of twentieth-century literature – the excitement it has caused, the provocative critical debates it has generated, the political and historical influences it has developed from.

Advanced creative writing
This course develops your writing ability by widening your generic range and developing your knowledge of style. The course works on the forms introduced in the Level 2 course Creative writing - fiction, poetry and life writing – and supplements these with dramatic writing, showing you how to write for stage, radio and film. You’ll explore how these scriptwriting skills might enhance your prose style, improve your writing across the range of forms, and further develop your individual style and voice.

The art of English
This course looks at creativity in the English language: from everyday language use (conversation, children’s language, letter writing, online chat) to ‘high culture’ literary language and new kinds of media texts. You’ll consider how ‘verbal art’ works in a wide range of texts, and the extent to which the seeds of literary creativity may be found in more routine uses of English.

The Nineteenth Century novel
This course encourages you to enjoy and understand novels through the study of twelve texts from England, France and the USA, including works by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, George Eliot, Flaubert and Conrad. The focus is on understanding the role of the novel in representing and exploring social and cultural change, the flexibility of the genre and how it developed aesthetically, stylistically and structurally.

Content last updated: 03/02/2009

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