Ideas people can use.
Talks and facilitated workshops on ancient history, storytelling, evidence, audiences and the practical work of interpreting difficult material together.
Public talks
Accessible, intellectually serious talks for libraries, festivals, schools, cultural organizations and general audiences.
Topics can draw on Greece and Rome, historical storytelling, politics, classical reception and the ancient worlds behind modern fiction.
Professional workshops
Discussion-driven sessions that connect literary interpretation to practical questions about persuasion, ambiguity, ethics and audience.
Workshops are designed around the participants’ real communication problems rather than delivered as abstract lectures.
Featured workshop
Persuasion, ambiguity & audience
Messages do not arrive in an audience’s mind unchanged. Context, identity, expectation and prior stories all affect what people hear.
This workshop uses literature, rhetoric and real-world cases to help participants identify ambiguity, anticipate divergent readings and communicate more deliberately. Participants apply each concept to a live question from their own work.
Recognize where ambiguity enters a message
Understand how perspective shapes reception
Examine how speakers construct the audience they need
Apply the framework to an organizational communication problem
Previously offered through Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin.
Participant responses
“I liked that after each deep dive into a concept we were directed to bring it back to our real-world question.”
“Ayelet did a fantastic job facilitating discussion stemming from the classic themes and stories.”
“I left feeling very impressed and profoundly impacted.”
Workshop participants, 2022
Possible subjects
A starting point, not a fixed menu
How ancient historians turned evidence into narrative
The politics and historical imagination of Game of Thrones
What citation does to a story—and to an audience’s trust
Persuasion, ambiguity and the audiences we construct
Reading difficult texts together
I adapt existing areas of expertise to the audience and occasion. Scope, format and preparation are agreed in advance.
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Tell me about the audience, format, date and the question you want the session to help them explore.
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