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Archive of Weekend Course | LeisureCourses.net - short courses & residential study breaks in great locations - Part 15

  • Advanced Italian: A cultural grand tour of Italy

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    A weekend on Italian language, literature and culture, offering those with a fair or good knowledge of Italian the opportunity not only to practise and improve their language skills, but also to read, translate and discuss a selection of work by Italian writers and to watch original audio-visual material related to the topic of the...

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  • John of Gaunt

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-99) is one of the most high-profile, and best-documented, English noblemen of the Middle Ages. This course will explore his life as a way into topics such as the Hundred Years War, the Great Revolt of 1381 (in which Gaunt was public enemy number one) and developments in the...

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  • French crime fiction: from Vidocq to Vargas

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This course examines the French side of cross-Channel competition and exchange, through key authors who have influenced crime writing since its establishment in the mid-19th century. The themes will be: i) the growth of French detectives in in inquisitorial system of justice; ii) the educational importance of the historical past on the events of the...

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  • The promise of Enlightenment

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    What is the Enlightenment? What was its promise and has it failed? The Enlightenment ushered in a modern era of belief in progress through reason and science. This course is an opportunity to participate in the great philosophical debate over the promise of Enlightenment.

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  • From here to the edge of the observable Universe

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Have you ever wondered about planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, dark matter, vacuum energy, or if we are alone in the Universe? If so, this non-mathematical introductory course on modern astronomy is for you. The course will take the form of a tour starting in our solar system and ending at the limit of our...

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  • Creative writing for teachers

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Whether you aim to teach adults or children, this course is designed to equip you with the skills you need to get the best results from your students. The fundamental elements of creative writing will be covered alongside coaching in how to create a class atmosphere conducive to creativity and how to encourage, support and...

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  • Tracing the origins of the British using genetics, linguistics and chroniclers

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The origins of the British seem to have been securely laid out since Bede in AD 731, who described the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, and since Buchanan in AD 1582, who suggested that the early British were from Gaul, ultimately leading to the modern concept of an Iron Age 'Celtic' Britain. However, the traditional views...

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  • The Spanish Civil War

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This year sees the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The war was a major event in 20th-century Europe and attracted passionate interest across the world. This course introduces you to debates over the war's origins, its effects and the causes of Franco's victory as well as the passions roused in...

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  • Music for the cinema: the neglected art

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    What exactly does music do for films when we wouldn't expect it in the theatre? Why is it no longer the force it once was? From the closing years of the silent era to close on a hundred years of 'the talkies', we trace and analyse the role of music 'in the film cast' with...

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  • Conservation science

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    There is no doubt that natural habitats and the species they contain are under severe threat from human disturbance; from tropical rainforests to the polar ice-caps, no area of the planet has escaped. In this course, we will explore key issues in modern conservation. Rather than bemoaning losses, we will focus on what can be...

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  • Writing fiction for children of primary school age

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Funny, adventurous, wacky, imaginative, interesting books aimed at children between 6 and 11 years old are always on publishers' wish-lists. This course aims at helping you develop characters, plot, style and ideas, never losing sight of the current market, to get your children's book written and published.

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  • Masters of British landscape from Gainsborough to Goldsworthy

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Landscape is everywhere; an obvious subject for painters and one which has inspired many of our greatest masters, from Gainsborough, Constable and Turner to the Pre-Raphaelites and Stanley Spencer. Come and spend a weekend exploring their struggles, their triumphs, and the passion that drove them to change the ways we look at nature forever.

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  • O rare Ben Jonson

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The appearance in 2013 of Ian Donaldson's brilliant life-and-works book on Shakespeare's friend and only serious rival Ben Jonson proves a wonderful stimulus for the study of three of his sourly evergreen comedies, The Alchemist, Volpone and Bartholemew Fair, and his tragedy Sejanus, recently and successfully revived at Stratford. There will be many laughs and...

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  • The English economy before the Norman Conquest: agriculturalists, artisans and aristocrats

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    How did people make a living when there was no money in England, and how did goods circulate with no market? Come and explore fundamental questions like these on this weekend course, and trace how Anglo-Saxon towns, trade and coinage began and developed as the early Middle Ages progressed.

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  • Why are the Americans more religious than the British?

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    As the race for the Presidency hots up, are you baffled by the role religion continues to play in American life? This course will set you straight. Learn about the history that has shaped American religious sensibilities, explore the data of religious practice today, and enter the American mind.

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  • Intermediate Russian: The 1917 Revolution – facts, fiction, arts

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend is designed for those who already have a reasonable conversational grasp of Russian. You will be able to expand your knowledge of contemporary Russian language, culture and society and gain more confidence in speaking and writing. The sessions will be mostly in Russian and will include, besides language exercises, a look at current...

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  • Sustainable Development Goals: what difference will they make to international development?

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    We are at the cusp of significant changes in both thinking and delivering 'international assistance' as a result of the new set of targets known as the Sustainable Development Goals. With reference to case studies, this course explores the consequences of the changes ahead by looking in turn at the criteria and targets set for...

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  • Viking Britain

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    For over 300 years, the Vikings were profoundly involved in British society and politics, and their legacy can still be felt throughout the British Isles. This course will introduce you to the history, archaeology, art and literature of the Vikings, and show how the idea of 'Viking Britain' continues to resonate to this day.

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  • New Testament Greek

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This course is aimed at students who have been studying Greek for a year or more. We shall read and discuss a selection of extended passages from the New Testament Gospels and Epistles, aiming to understand both their language and their historical background. We shall also by way of contrast look at some shorter extracts...

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  • Advanced French: Monsieur de La Fontaine

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    This weekend course is held entirely in French. It focuses on various topics illustrated through literature and art, often related to present cultural events, and aimed at language improvement. The texts, chosen from a wide range of classic and modern writers, will be used as a basis for discussion throughout the sessions. A variety of...

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  • Immortality and eternity: different conceptions of the afterlife

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    What answers come from having more life? In this course, an alternative picture will be considered to the dogmatic view of eternal life as 'more life'. Through retrospective analysis of the teachings of Christ and that of 19th and 20th century philosophers, we will expose a profound and equally valid interpretation of eternal life as...

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  • Bede and the history of early England

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People tells us much of what we know, or think we know, about the history of England from its origins to the 730s. This course will revisit Bede, in the light of recent historical and archaeological research, to estimate how far he has misled generations of readers.

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  • Daily life and the afterlife in ancient Egypt

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Have you ever wondered what life was like in ancient Egypt? Or why the Egyptians mummified their dead? From childbirth to mortality, funerals to Osiris's judgement, in this course, you will explore daily life in ancient Egypt, and beyond. By the end, you will have a better understanding of the ancient Egyptians, and a foundation...

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  • Reading Classical Latin: Ovid and love

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Ovid claims that there are a hundred reasons why he is always in love and in reading Amores Book 2, we shall discover some of these reasons. But we shall also encounter a dead parrot, his girl Corinna's jealousy and her abortion, and Ovid's wish to be a signet ring. Anyone with a sound basic...

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  • Reading Classical Latin: Suetonius on Caesar

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Suetonius's Life of Divus Iulius provides a miscellany of 'facts' from Julius Caesar's life. We discover the origin of veni vidi vici, meet his lovers, see him scorning religion, learn of his oratorical skills and follow him to his assassination on the Ides of March. Anyone with a sound basic knowledge of Latin will be...

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  • John’s gospel: where children can paddle and elephants can swim

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    John's gospel contains some of the most well-known phrases in the New Testament: 'the Word became flesh', 'I am the bread of life'. But there are also puzzles: why does John's Jesus die on a different day to the Jesus of the other gospels? Is the gospel anti-semitic? Is John's Jesus more divine than human?...

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  • The social mind

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Humans are very social animals and this course is about why that is and how our social minds work. How did social behaviour evolve? What does it mean to have 'social skills' and why do some people have better social skills than others? And if we are such sociable creatures - why are we often...

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  • Ritualism and revivalism: a brief history of Victorian religion

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Christianity played an important part in Victorian politics, sociality and culture. It was an era of significant development of religious thought; of faith and doubt. This course is a survey of Victorian religion which includes studies on the feature of British Evangelicalism, the battles between Anglican and Nonconformists, Tractarianism, and other developments such as premillenialism...

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  • Early Netherlandish art c.1500: the art and time of Hieronymus Bosch

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    Hieronymus Bosch is a medieval painter on the threshold of the Renaissance. His startling visions of Hell are part of late-medieval religion, rather than evidence of heresy or witchcraft. Proverbs are another important feature of his work, but it is its enigmatic and individual quality that continues to intrigue us.

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  • Ancient cultures of South America

    Listed on January 29, 2016 by Madingley Hall in Featured Courses

    The Inka Empire (AD 1400-1532) ruled 10 million subjects across five countries without written language or the wheel. But how did they do it? If you want to learn about the cultural richness of the ancient world of Peru, then this course is for you. We will discuss pre-Columbian kingdoms, warfare, sacrifice and ritual, death...

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