Personal and Professional Development Programmes 2021

UK Culture and Language Update

For those interested in interculturality, including ELT practitioners, this course offers a range of lectures, seminars and field studies aimed at developing participants' appreciation of cultural diversity with a focus on modern Britain.

"Culture is a set of norms accepted by the majority of any identifiable people grouping"

Seminars will cover a wide range of aspects of life in the UK, including media, politics, ethnicity and identity, youth culture and the changing English language.

27.6. - 03.07.21

and 

22 -28.08.21 (repeat)

 

From Shakespeare to Postmodernism in Ian McEwan.
An English Literature Five-Day Crash Course

Enhance your knowledge of world-famous English literature, its epochs, genres and landmark works.

- Enjoy Shakespeare's genius as Al Pacino mesmerizes as Shylock (in the play with the first media game show and the first courtroom drama); 

- Explore the "Ambivalences and Absolutes" of The Evangelical & Enlightenment eras; marvel at the first ever English novels (Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe); discover why God is mentioned 161 times in Crusoe and not once in Gulliver;  learn how Samuel Pepys lost his way but left us fascinating (usually censored) diaries.

- Trace how the Romantics' yearning for a higher reality morphed into the Victorian obsession with Gothic and the macabre.

- "All that glisters is not gold": get a feel for the ambivalences of the Roaring 20s, from the breezy farces of P G Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster) to the excoriating self-destructiveness of the Great Gatsby; and how Evelyn Waugh spanned the full range.

- Learn to distinguish typical features of Modernism (T S Eliot/James Joyce) from Postmodernism; enjoy texts from a range of great British writers of the past 60 years (Lodge, Bradley, le Carré, McEwan et al).

- Enjoy the "Top 20 English Poems" of all time.

And more!

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Lectures and interactive seminars including video sessions and private reading time will make this an unforgettable week of literary studies.

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A day trip to Dublin will be a chance to celebrate the legacy of a constellation of famous Anglo-Irish writers.

4 - 10 July 2021

and

15 -21 August 2021 (repeat)

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Package Price

The all-inclusive price for each course is £785. 

These courses are eligible for the EU's Erasmus KA1 funding programme.

A special price is negotiable for those who attend some seminars only, also for those taking part on a non-residential basis. 

Days 1 and 7 are flexible arrival and departure days.

Accommodation is in single en-suite rooms in Belfast's Stranmillis College.

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