Arts and humanities courses
Arts and humanities courses. We don’t just teach, we inspire.
Exploring the depths of culture, philosophy and history has never been so accessible. Learn from experts in the field and create an everlasting bond with some of the world’s most impactful reading material. Our comprehensive arts and humanities courses offered at the University of Sydney provide students with unending knowledge that touches our roots while building towards the future.
Don’t be intimidated by our knowledgeable faculty – they know their stuff but they also understand that everyone starts somewhere, which is why we welcome inquiring minds without prejudice. Step up to unleash your inner scholar and get energised by mind-stimulating discourse amongst like-minded peers. Meet friends, form opinions and come out of it with a cultural experience you won’t soon forget!
Sign up now for your very own inspiring experience. We offer groundbreaking opportunities to unlock your intellectual potential, turning everyday people into more thoughtful citizens able to appreciate their pasts and consider their futures more deeply. So say farewell to mundane education and open your world through art and humanities today! Learn arts and humanities in Sydney with arts and humanities courses from the University of Sydney – your premier provider of short courses in Sydney and online.
Featured courses
Meet your facilitators
Craig Barker
Dr Craig Barker is an archaeologist and the Head of Public Engagement and Education for the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney. This includes the Nicholson Collection which houses...
Mark Tredinnick
Mark Tredinnick, winner of the Montreal Poetry Prize (2011) and the Cardiff Poetry Prize (2012), is the author of The Blue Plateau, Fire Diary, and nine other acclaimed works of poetry and prose....
Andrew Urban
Creator & interviewer, Front Up (SBS TV) Channel Host, World Movies Channel Presenter, Movies This Week, Ovation & World Movies Channels Founder and editor, urbancinefile.com.au A career...
John Wells
Armed with a Diploma in Fine Art from Brighton College of Art and a Masters degree, John left Reading University to endeavour to realise another ambition and that was to be an actor. He acquired a...
Featured Articles
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. The philosophical essay, in its modern form, originates from the late-sixteenth-century France with Michel de Montaigne, who “retired from political life, shut himself in his library, and tried something new”. In 1580, he published the first version of the Essays. In this course we will look at the ideas of some of the most significant philosophers and public thinkers through their essays. The essay form... View Great Philosophical Essays Course.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Join us as we explore the present interest in republicanism throughout constitutional monarchies such as Australia, renewed with the death of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Republicanism has a long philosophical history, and we will draw on that history in the course. In political theory and philosophy, the term ‘republicanism’ is generally used in three different senses. In the first sense, republicanism... View Philosophy Course: Republican History, Concepts and the Future.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. This introductory course crosses many fields including sociology, cultural theory, linguistics, ethnography, psychology, and evolutionary theory. Anthropology, though its own distinctive field and its unique history, has drawn from and contributed back to many of these areas. During this course, we will take a cultural/historical approach to track the philosophical ideas which underpin anthropology, from... View Philosophy of Anthropology Course.
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In Part II of this series of courses on Music in Europe in the late Nineteenth Century, we continue to explore and weave together the various nationalist strands of orchestral and operatic music composed in this period, by now universally being referred to as the Fin de Siècle.
We not only see how Brahms dominates the German musical scene after the death of Wagner, but how his protégé Dvorak has established himself as a force to be reckoned with, both in England – composing a series of major orchestral and choral works for the annual English music festivals – and also further afield, accepting a specially-created and highly-lucrative position as head of a new musical conservatory in New York.
We see Saint-Saëns’s neglected opera Samson et Dalila finally take its rightful place at the Paris Opéra, where it rapidly becomes part of the repertoire, and note the huge success of Massenet’s Manon at the Opéra-Comique. We also pay homage to Fauré’s gentler vocal muse through his delightful collections of mélodies and chansons.
Through this decade, the Russian school is dominated by Tchaikovsky, particularly his late sequence of masterpieces comprising the Pushkin opera The Queen of Spades, the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker, and the final symphony, the so-called Pathétique. Rimsky-Korsakov also dazzles with his breathtakingly voluptuous orchestration in his ‘symphonic suite’ Sheherazade.
Verdi rounds off a remarkable 50-year career with two magnificent operas based on his beloved Shakespeare – the tragic Otello, and the comic Falstaff – both featuring brilliant librettos by Arrigo Boito. Meanwhile, in the early 1890s, the young Italian school revel in the violence of the new verismo style, launched by Mascagni with Cavalleria rusticana and confirmed soon afterwards by Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
In the final lecture we encounter the music of newcomers Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss for the first time.
View Music of the Fin de Siècle Course: 1884 - 1893. -
Psychology. Explore the human mind. It took the genius of Carl Jung to discover within the philosophy of alchemy a parallel to the process of individuation in personal development. Demystify Jung's use of alchemy and explore the way it influenced his work on individuation, psychological transformation, instincts and sexuality. We will look at alchemy in its historic setting and how the language of alchemical symbolism can explain the psychotherapy process. Content This course... View Jung and Alchemy Course.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. This philosophy course explores the idea that art is not marginal to human concerns, but a key element in emotional, social and psychological life. Many philosophers have proposed that art is not only the highest human achievement but an essential realm which allows humans to imaginatively reconstruct themselves and the worlds they inhabit. From Greek tragedy to Postmodern conceptualism, we will explore... View Philosophy of Art Course: Introduction from Plato to the Postmodern.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Music is one of the oldest forms of human expression; it delights our senses, arouses our emotions, and stimulates our mind. It has also fascinated philosophers since the Ancient Greeks, down to the present. The course will cover: The role of music in history, culture and society; The major philosophers on music; Music and human emotions; Music and the imagination; Music and politics. We will use examples... View Philosophy of Music Course.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Aristotle was the polymath of the Ancient world he wrote on: ethics, politics, mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, anatomy, biology, cosmology, poetry, drama, rhetoric. The enduring nature of his profound thought and fundamental insights into ethics, politic and the arts makes his philosophy as relevant now as it has been throughout Western history. This course will provide an in-depth study of all of... View Philosophy Course: Aristotle - Ancient Wisdom.
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Creative writing. Express yourself with the written word. Designed to give you the practical skills to approach your creative writing projects with confidence, this creative writing course is built around particular topics integral to the writing process such as: voice, place evocation, characterisation, structure, sentence-craft and editing. Using exercises to get started, we will look at the basic elements of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction and poetry) and at ways to... View Creative Writing Course.
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Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. This philosophy course aims to develop your critical thinking skills through practical sessions and the study of informal logic techniques. We will learn the basics of a good argument and evaluate the reasons why arguments go wrong. We will work through practical exercises and evaluate examples from everyday life. Aims The aim of the course is to provide you with an understanding of how to construct a... View Philosophy Course: The Art of Critical Thinking.