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WEA courses
Displaying 11 - 15 of 15
Displaying search results for: "Stephen Smith "
Literature: Dutch Short Stories
This five week course will introduce you to an often neglected area of the European short story, this being stories from the Netherlands. Each of the five stories can be found in The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories, which is the text we will work from.
The stories for consideration and analysis are:
Young Titans - Nescio.
The Sirens - Maria Dermout.
The Portrait - Hella Haasse.
Paula - Cees Nooteboom.
Sunrise Day - Margriet De Moor.
The course will involve lectures, discussions and advice on further research into the subject. Each session will dissect a narrative and relate its context, meaning and style.
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Course Information
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Dates:Tue 14/01/2025 -
Tue 11/02/2025Times:4:00pm - 6:00pmDuration:5 sessionsLocation:OnlineTutor:Stephen SmithCourse code:Q00017912How you'll learn:OnlineAvailability:7 places remainingStatus:AvailableFee rangeFree to £37.00
Literature: Contemporary British Fiction
This course will consider and analyse the following authors and their texts. These are: The Stranger’s Child - Alan Hollinghurst. The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald. A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro. Last Orders - Graham Swift. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan. These texts will provide a window into the different regions of Britain during the last fifty years, decades of major change in the social fabric and political nature of Britain, though several of our texts will trace these changes back to the earlier part of the twentieth century, and in doing so, we will encounter themes of identity, class and the decline of Empire. There will be much to prompt discussion and challenge our assumptions.
This course is funded by Greater London Combined Authority.
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Course Information
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Dates:Wed 15/01/2025 -
Wed 26/03/2025Times:10:30am - 12:30pmDuration:10 sessionsLocation:Duke Street Church
Quadrant Road
Richmond
TW9 1DHTutor:Stephen SmithCourse code:Q00019812How you'll learn:In venueAvailability:10+ places remainingStatus:AvailableFee rangeFree to £84.00
Literature: French Literature Post 1945
This ten week course ranges widely across postwar French literature and its themes and concerns. Stephen has discussed French literature before, but these texts are all previously untaught.
The texts are:
The Plague - Albert Camus.
Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar.
Missing Person - Patrick Modiano.
Street of Thieves - Mathias Enard.
Simple Passion - Annie Ernaux.
These very different books will introduce us to disparate elements of the French psyche, and explore themes of identity, memory and displacement.
The course will feature lectures, group discussions, close-reading and contextualisation of the historical moments pertinent to each writer and text. It will be provoking intellectually and imaginatively, and lively participation is encouraged.
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Course Information
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Dates:Thu 16/01/2025 -
Thu 27/03/2025Times:7:00pm - 9:00pmDuration:10 sessionsLocation:OnlineTutor:Stephen SmithCourse code:Q00017921How you'll learn:OnlineAvailability:10+ places remainingStatus:AvailableFee rangeFree to £74.00
Art Appreciation: The Art of Stanley Spencer
This five week course will explore the richness and diversity of the English painter, Stanley Spencer. We will discover both well-known and less well-known works of his, which span his career as an artist. All of the paintings examined will be provided on Canvas for you to assess.
The course will explore Spencer's context and how he relates to contemporary art movements in Britain and Europe. You will be encouraged to participate fully in the analysis of his canvases, and to seek out other works which you think will enrich our discussions.
The course will be an opportunity to discover Spencer for the first time or to rediscover him, and to evaluate his importance to the English tradition.
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Course Information
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Dates:Fri 17/01/2025 -
Fri 14/02/2025Times:2:00pm - 4:00pmDuration:5 sessionsLocation:OnlineTutor:Stephen SmithCourse code:Q00017938How you'll learn:OnlineAvailability:6 places remainingStatus:AvailableFee rangeFree to £37.00
WEA Membership
WEA membership is changing: more information is coming soon!
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Membership Information
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Duration:12 monthsFee:£15
Creative Writing: Nothing Rhymes with Orange - Writing in Rhyme
This course will explore how to produce poems which rhyme. In the twentieth century, particularly post-war, vers libre and syllabic verse have proliferated, yet poets persist in writing rhymed and rhythmical poetry.
During these five weeks, we will examine how modern poets deploy rhyme and integrate it into the rhythms of ordinary speech and a demotic vocabulary.
Each session will be a workshop, which examines and puts into practice your own experiments in rhyme, allowing you to develop first drafts and then finished versions of at least three new poems.
The workshops will be mutually supportive at all times, supportive and inspirational.
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Course Information
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Dates:Sat 18/01/2025 -
Sat 15/02/2025Times:10:00am - 12:00pmDuration:5 sessionsLocation:OnlineTutor:Stephen SmithCourse code:Q00017942How you'll learn:OnlineAvailability:8 places remainingStatus:AvailableFee rangeFree to £37.00