Tuesday Mornings
10.15am to 12.15pm Community Arts Centre Roaring Meg Stevenage Tuesday 22nd September. 10 weeks. Cost £40 Half term 27th October GREEK MYTHS (5 weeks) Speaker: Paul Drew During the five-week course, we will immerse ourselves in some of the earliest Greek myths, meeting many famous characters such as Jason and the Argonauts, the witch, Circe, Daedalus and Icarus, and many more. We will explore the concept of the Greek Hero (very different from our own definition!) and will see the tragic consequences of divine lust and revenge." ABODE OF WAR: THE MIDDLE EAST SINCE 1900 (5 weeks starting 3rd November) Speaker Michael Williams This course considers the reasons for the almost constant conflict that has troubled the Middle East since the beginning of the last century. It begins with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the first decades of the century and ends with the current wars between the US and Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies. |
Thursday Mornings
Half term 29th October
CHARACTER DRESSING; THE ROLE OF CLOTHING IN FICTION (5 weeks) Speaker Claire Nicholson Novelists bring their characters to life on the page in a variety of ways, one of which includes description of exterior appearance. This course will examine the role played by clothes and fashion in evoking fictional characters by examining a selection of texts from the early nineteenth century to the present day. We will consider if sartorial description is just 'dressing the part' or if it has a more complex role to play. THE HISTORY OF WRITING FROM CAVE PAINTING TO EMOJIS (3 weeks) Speaker Graham Pointon The earliest visible evidence we have for 'real' writing is at least 5500 years old. Even before that, people were making deliberate marks on objects that may or not be 'writing'. Starting from that point, the talks will take us through the various stages that 'visible speech' has gone through up to the alphabet that we use, and several other writing systems that are still in use around the world. It will describe how we have learned to read scripts that have died out and consider the ways in which the alphabet has been modified over the last 2000 years to accommodate many languages, and the effect that first printing, then the computer revolution, have had, and continue to have, on language as we see it, rather than how we say it. THE SISTINE CHAPEL (26th November) Speaker James Willis Come on a tour of the Sistine Chapel with James Willis and explore its intricate history, scandals, imagery and politics. Possibly the most famous ceiling in the world, find out about Michelangelo's reluctance to paint it, the other artists involved in the frescoes on the walls and the forgotten art works that were to complete the entire sacred programme. LES TROIS GRANDES DAMES OF IMPRESSIONISM (3rd December) Speaker Sarah Burles The Impressionists were an innovative and radical group of artists who took Paris by storm in the 1870s. From the start the group included women artists but their contribution to Impressionism has often been overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt all exhibited regularly at the Impressionist exhibitions alongside artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. In 1894 they were given the title “Les Trois Grandes Dames d’Impressionisme” by the art critic Gustave Geffroy. This lecture will discuss the lives of each of these artists and their work, revealing their skill and originality as well as their willingness to take risks, despite the additional obstacles they faced as women. |
