- Published on November 11, 2026
April Weekend Courses
Taught in the beautiful setting of Madingley Hall, our Weekend Courses offer you the opportunity to discover new subjects, learn from some of our finest academics, expand your professional and social networks and become part of a supportive learning community.
You can book to stay in the comfortable rooms at Madingley Hall, with views over the woods, gardens and courtyard. Each en-suite room has wi-fi, TV, phone, and tea- and coffee-making facilities. Breakfast is also included.
If you choose to stay nearby, no problem. You’ll still be able to enjoy the grounds during the day and enjoy the award-winning cuisine in our elegant dining hall.
The following courses will run in April 2027
An Introduction to Coaching
Many people are now expected to mentor or coach in their professional roles, or have adopted coaching approaches—often picked up through the media—in their personal lives. This introductory course offers a deeper understanding of both the theory and practice of coaching. It presents key strategies, explores foundational theories, and engages with current professional and academic debates in the field. Through workshop sessions participants will have opportunities for both practice and discussion.
Tutor – Dr James Underwood
Novel Openings: Understanding Fiction Through Beginnings
The way a novel begins reveals how it thinks about the world. This course explores how openings define the terms of fiction: how to make a world, address a reader, and give narrative its charge of necessity. Through close readings from Jane Austen to Zadie Smith, we’ll ask how realism, modernism, and postmodernism each reimagine the act of beginning. Short excursions into narrative theory will guide us as we consider openings as both artistic experiments and philosophical propositions—moments when fiction pauses, before the story begins, to think about its own means of storytelling.
Tutor – Dr Nathaniel Mark Zetter
Philosophy as Therapy: from Good Counsel to Consolations
Western philosophy begins with the edict, “Know thyself”. This focus on self extends beyond self knowledge. Philosophy also offers consolations for fate, misfortune and death. These consolations require, not a great intellect (although this helps), but adherence to a set of practices. Through these practices, we will examine and, more importantly, experience these consolations for ourselves. Here, success lies not in sound and valid conclusions. Rather, “the proof is in the pudding”. That is, are we consoled?
Tutor – Dr Alex David Carter
The Golden Age of Elizabethan Music and Culture: Byrd, Dowland, Gibbons and their World
The Elizabethan period was a true ‘golden age’ in music, where great composers like Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons and Dowland worked in a cultural environment that cherished their talents. They were surrounded by a host of other excellent musicians, and together created works for voices, viols, lutes and keyboard that are still heard and appreciated today. The course will cover the major composers of the English musical renaissance, the context for their work and its performance, the development of musical instruments, religious controversies, court culture, patronage and politics, music and Shakespeare and many other aspects. No special musical training is assumed for attendees, and numerous recorded and live music examples will form part of the course.
Tutor – Dr Francis Knights
Creative Writing Retreat
Our Creative Writing Retreats balance tutor-led sessions and motivational starts to your writing day, with time to focus on your own projects and small-group workshops. Each short, intensive retreat is designed to inspire writing and forge a writing community, and includes scheduled time to write, discussions and sharing your work and readings with fellow students. We aim to support you in starting a project, developing a short story or novel, and/or encouraging you to complete a draft. Fellow participants may have varying writing experience or be at different stages in their writing project. You’ll have opportunities to learn from everyone’s writing over the course.
Tutor – Dr Yvonne Battle-Felton
People in the Roman World
This course will focus on many aspects of Roman life across the Empire but especially in the northwestern provinces and Britain. What happened in the streets and street life, the houses, house interiors and Roman gardens? Food , drink, cooking, kitchens, pottery, furniture, fittings, heating, lighting, household gods and beliefs, entertainment, baths, brothels, theatres and the circus along with how the toilets and drains worked, water supply and medicine. All will be revealed by fully illustrated talks along with a session of handling original Roman objects such as pottery, coins, personal items and other objects from the Roman world.
Tutor – Professor Stephen Upex
The Greatest Stories Never Told: the Hidden History of Biology
Can the soul be cut in half, and how much does it weigh? Why was one of the most famous biologists of the 20th century so determined to drink hydrochloric acid? Why did an evolutionary biologist hailed ‘the greatest since Darwin’ die homeless in London in 1975? Do wombs wander around the body, and is botany morally corruptive? If the tape of history was re-wound and re-played, would we always have to wait so long for natural selection to be discovered? This course answers these questions and many more as we journey through the history of biology from Aristotle to the present day, uncovering the extraordinary and often little-known stories of the thinkers who transformed our understanding of life on Earth.
No prior biological knowledge assumed.
Tutor – Dr Andrew Martin Catherall-Ostler
What is International Law, and does it Matter in the Age of Trump?
International law is routinely scoffed at. For some, law is an expression of power lacking a police force to enforce judgements, the law and courts are weak and their judgements are ignored by the powerful.
Though there is some truth to this, a better reading is that international law underwent rapid development after World War II and that law covering the use of force, human rights, the environment and all manner of international trade provides the cornerstones of modern society. This course offers a practical weekend introduction to key international legal concepts and looks at how international law could develop over the next decade.
Tutor – Toby Fenwick