Adult Education Courses
I am currently offering a number social history courses for adults. These are designed to engage your interest much better than any school history lesson you may remember!
The courses currently can take place online or face to face if a suitable venue can be found in Nottinghamshire or north Leicestershire. I’m currently teaching some of my courses at the Mechanics Institute in Nottingham. Please contact me for further information.
The Social History of 19th Century France: from the Restoration to the Belle Epoque
Ever wondered about the historical events depicted in the musical Les Misérables?
Or whether there is any truth in films like Moulin Rouge!?
This course will reveal the history behind such fictional accounts.
Despite all the revolutions and rebellions, which seemed to be constantly breaking out in the 19th century, and the ignominious defeat in war against Prussia, France managed to produce the first photograph, Impressionism, the first cinema show, Carmen, Art Nouveau – and of course the cancan, a dance that evolved from humble origins at working-class dance-halls into an enduring symbol of the “naughty nineties”.
We also cover the dramatic reconstruction of Paris designed by Baron Haussmann, the notorious high-class courtesans, and the Dreyfus Affair. Illustrated with paintings, cartoons from satirical magazines, film clips, and musical extracts.
In Tune With the Times: Social History and Satire In Musicals
Three courses providing an entertaining look at history through operettas and musicals – covering both the events depicted in them and the historical context in which they were written.
In Tune With The Times covers Show Boat‘s depictions of racial intolerance and segregation in the American South; the decadence of Second Empire France (Orpheus in the Underworld); Weimar Germany (Cabaret); Belle Epoque Paris and Vienna (The Merry Widow); the first American film musicals in the 1920s and 1930s, and how they came to be governed by the notorious “Production Code”; social commentary in stage musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, including West Side Story; the so-called “Sexual Revolution”, from the 1960s to the present day; and what today’s blockbusters, including Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera, can tell us about our own time.
Musicals: Strife, Low Life and High Society includes Fiddler on the Roof, set against a background of Russian persecution of Jewish families and how they struggled to maintain their traditions; the coming of sound films and the problems they created for silent film stars as seen in Singin’ in the Rain; how musicals have tackled industrial strife and hardship, particularly in Made in Dagenham, Billy Elliott and The Matchgirls; musicals and the underworld in Guys and Dolls and Chicago; and a comparison of Miss Saigon and Hair in their treatment of the Vietnam War and its effects.
Musicals: The Weird and the Wonderful looks at some of the unlikely subjects and unusual treatments of familiar themes that have provided the bases for musicals in more recent years. We’ll look at international politics in Chess, Evita and Call Me Madam; the B-movie science fiction and horror-influenced Rocky Horror Show and Sweeney Todd; fairy tales subverted in Frozen and Into The Woods; and the quirky side of Rodgers and Hammerstein – plus many more, including the ultimate bad-taste musical The Producers.
Illustrated with film clips and musical extracts, photos and cartoons from satirical magazines.
Behind the Iron Curtain
The Cold War division of Europe seemed for many years to be a permanent situation. But in 1989, a series of remarkable events took place that left each of the formerly communist Eastern European countries moving towards multiparty democracy. In November that year, the East German authorities decided to dismantle the Berlin Wall, and so remove the most potent symbol of the so-called “Iron Curtain”.
This course looks at the history of the Warsaw Pact countries, often viewed in the West as a monolithic bloc that the Soviet Union had re-created in its own image. In fact, each of these countries had particular characteristics, individual issues and even different political systems that would always constitute weaknesses in the fortress that Josef Stalin’s government in Moscow had tried to establish. In the 1980s, the cracks became even more obvious and a number of factors, some of them involving tensions between countries in the bloc, led to the collapse of communism as a system of government in Eastern Europe.
With film clips, photos and art works.
Brushstrokes of History
Two courses looking at various aspects of social and political history through great paintings.
Brushstrokes of History includes the establishment of the first “capitalist” economy in Bruges, and how it attracted Italian merchants, like the one depicted in the Arnolfini portrait of Jan van Eyck (right); art before and after the Revolution in France; the far from glamorous aspects of war, as depicted by Goya and Picasso; the struggles of great women painters to establish themselves in what most people considered to be a man’s profession; and the achievements of Russian artists in the 20th century, despite political upheavals and ultimately persecution by the state.
Great Paintings in Times of Massive Social Upheavals covers the formation of the Dutch Republic after the Eighty Years War when artists like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Leyster were active; the success of Renaissance artists Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and many others despite the Italian Wars and shifting allegiances of the city states; and American art from the time of the Civil War through the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, through to the post-Second World War era.
Both these courses are illustrated with examples of paintings and historical images.
Britain in Ireland: from the Act of Union to the Irish Free State
This course focuses on the history of the troubled island of Ireland from the beginning of the 19th century to the establishment of an independent republic (effectively) at the end of the 1930s. It begins with an overview of the history of the subjugation of the Irish people by Anglo-Norman and English kings and queens until the end of the 18th century, when a significant rebellion forced the British government to attempt to solve “the Irish Question” by introducing the Act of Union of 1801. The failure to grant Catholic emancipation and the response of the government to the Great Famine encouraged the development of Irish republicanism, and at the same time came several attempts to grant Home Rule within the United Kingdom, which ultimately failed with the outbreak of the First World War.
The pivotal Easter Rising and the British response to it hardened attitudes within Ireland and ensured a huge victory for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election. The War of Independence followed and the Anglo-Irish Treaty to end that war led to the Civil War, which still affects Irish politics today. Also included is a look at some of the personalities involved, particularly Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, who came to dominate Irish politics and eventually to achieve full independence from Britain, albeit without six counties of Ulster, with the new state being formally declared in 1949.
Other courses
I also offer several other, shorter courses, including:
Women in the Shadows: how some women in the arts – literature, painting and music – managed to achieve greatness in the 19th century despite prejudice, discrimination and social conventions which were all blocks to their progress.
Artists at War: how painting was used as part of the war effort, particularly in the First and Second World Wars, but also over the centuries in various conflicts almost since warfare began.
The Hollywood Production Code (the Hays Code): the history of a censorship system for Hollywood films, originally formulated in 1929 and eventually applied from 1934 officially until the 1960s. Also covers earlier attempts at censorship and how the lifestyles of the stars and directors of film affected the decision to impose the strict rules.
Great Artists you have probably never heard of: a look at some lesser-known artists whose work is often very impressive but who never achieved the fame of many of their contemporaries.
Contact me, David Price, for further information on any of these courses.