I’m delighted to announce that Robert’s courses for next term are now available for registration, so without further ado…

First up, we both feel that it’s high time that we did something specifically on The Italian Renaissance under the Wright History banner. Robert has touched on elements of this perennially fascinating moment in cultural history in several courses recently, and we’ve noticed en passant that it’s piqued the interest of several of you. This may well also be of particular interest to those of you have enjoyed our recent Rome courses (hmm…perhaps we should draft some Spot The Roman Stuff “bingo cards” for this one…), but it will be suitable whether or not you have any awareness of Roman history. Who doesn’t love a bit of renaissance…?!

Secondly, we’re pleased to offer Age of Improvement: Industry and society, 1750-1900 for its first ever online outing. Did you endure The Industrial Revolution at school back in the day? Dry as dust and nobbut coking ovens and spinning Jennies? Well this will be a Robertian take on the period - that is to say, taking key cultural and artistic trends into account (not least the Arts and Crafts movement, in which we know many of you are interested). But don’t worry - Jennies will still be spun, ovens will still be coked, and empires will still be built.

Next up, by popular request (including mine), A History of Russia. Your requests are, of course, borne of more erudite motives than mine, but as some of you know, I have very much enjoyed The Great - the recent gleefully anachronistic, very sweary, and ribald TV series (caveat videor). As many of you also know, Robert is not a fan of any fiction or drama which is post-1980, so he’s only watched about 10 minutes of it, aside from occasionally clocking over my shoulder what I’ve been watching with earbuds. Suffice it to say, having seen what he’s prepared for this exploration of a thousand years of Russian cultural history, I think that this one will be of interest to many of you. Huzzah!

Our next offering follows, chronologically, the online art history strand which so many of you have told us you’ve been enjoying.

I think it’s fair to say that those of you who joined us for The Shock of the New and weren’t sure about this modern art malarkey were pleasantly surprised to find that this apparently weird stuff wasn’t as “difficult” as you’d suspected and that you actually liked much of it (please correct me if I’m wrong!). So where does one go after Art Nouveau? Well you can find out here: Avant-garde! Art movements of the twentieth century!

Also in direct response to enthusiastic response when this course has been mooted….

Fancy a bit of fin de siècle, naughty-nineties cultural history, entertainment and excitement…?

Well ladies and gentlemen, I present unto you… La Belle Époque: Art, history, and culture in the late C19. What more do I need to say? Ooh la la!

Finally for now, for those of you who prefer things much older… voila, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It’s a phrase which trips off the tongue easily, but how many of us can name all seven off the top of their heads and say what made them so wonderful? Well this course will ensure that you can! This was very well-received when we ran it last summer, and as several people were unable to do it out of traditional term dates, we thought that we should resurrect it during a term.

This would also lead nicely into The Hellenistic Age - one of the courses we have pencilled in for September for those who love Really Old Stuff (which is the technical term for it, n’est-ca pas?), which leads me to our next bit of news….

Several of you have said that you’d like an idea of which courses are planned for beyond the immediate term. I’m still working on how best to present this on the website, but for now, here are the bare bones of what we’re currently thinking for those of you who like to plan ahead:

For September term -

• The (aforementioned) Hellenistic Age

• Monasticism

• The Silk Road

• Plus others - yet to be decided.

  In the shorter term, we’ll be announcing two short courses for the first weekends of May and June respectively. We’re also currently working out possible dates for summer entertainments in the form of 4-6 week courses. We hope to be able to offer An Idiot’s Guide to the Classics, Wicked Women, and the Inaugural Dr Huntington for Wright History course. More on those as soon as we’ve got things in place.

In other news, we’re still working out the tech logistics for Yorkshire Battles - Robert’s short course for PLACE, which starts on 20 April, and will be (hopefully!) both live in the wonderful Bedern Hall and live-streaming via zoom - before it goes live for booking. We’ll let you know as soon as that’s sorted and open for booking.

Phew! As you can see, we have been busy bunnies! We very much hope that you like the sound of our new offerings. You may notice that we’re responding to what you’ve requested and what is feasible in terms of research and preparation, and we shall continue to do this for future terms. Thank you so much for all of your valuable thoughts, requests, and suggestions. We feel very lucky indeed that you are willing and able to help us to tailor what we offer to what you would like!

Finally, speaking of responding to your requests…

If prior commitments mean that you know in advance that you won’t be able to attend a full course, it’s now possible to book specific sessions, on a pro rata basis.

Those of you who were with us for the first few terms may remember that we explicitly offered this at first. As it wasn’t taken up, we eventually stopped saying it explicitly. But of course things are now different, so it’s back on the course details as an option!

Also, several of you have asked for reading suggestions. We’ve done what we can along the way, but are in the throes of putting together something which is less ad hoc. We have also applied to become affiliated with Amazon. You will, I’m sure, have noticed other people’s websites doing this. As I understand it, if you buy a qualifying item via a link on our site, we may receive a small percentage of the sale price - at no extra cost to you, of course. I feel a little squeamish about it, but every little helps!

I’ll update this post with a link as soon as I’ve published the first set of reading suggestions and links. But we didn’t want to wait any longer to get the news in this post out to you.

To see all courses now available in calendar order (along with the courses already underway) click here. Alternatively, click on the relevant course title[s] in this post to go directly to the relevant page[s].