William Coles

I have been an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway since January 2024, having previously been a Visting Tutor in the Classics Department.

I am a Classicist by training and a Rhetorician by profession. I am broadly interested in classical rhetoric, both how it was pracised and theorised in Greo-Roman antiquity, but also how rhetoric is utilised in contemporary political communication. My AHRC-funded PhD thesis explored ambassadorial oratory in the Hellenitic Period, as represented in historiography and inscriptions, and the representation of speeches in historiographical texts remains a core interest of mine. I have also published on contemporary political rhetoric as it pracised both in the UK and Norway. 

I taught Greek History as well as Greek Art & Archaeology to first- and second-year students while I was a PhD student. My current teaching at Royal Holloway is focussed on the core course, Problems and Methods in Oratory and Rhetoric, which is the core course for the department's MRes in Rhetoric. Outside Royal Holloway, I have taught English and Composition at an inner-London state school. 

I also use my expertise in rhetoric in my work as freelance communications consultant, having assisted charities, think tanks, and business chambers with their communication strategies. 

I received my PhD in June 2023.