Read SJ’s piece in The New York Times

Welcome from SJ

We’ve all heard about it: we’re living through an age of distraction. As we scroll, stream, and post, fragments of information compete for our attention, pulling us away from the things that matter to us most.
Every day we face a choice; we can surrender to the noise, or anchor into the enduring power of storytelling to reclaim our attention, form character, and rebuild our inner lives.
For too long, people told me that the humanities, sciences, and modern technology belong in separate spheres. But stories don’t care about artificial boundaries. Whether pressed into a 3000-year-old clay tablet, copied onto the vellum of medieval manuscript, or translated into an extended reality experience, a great story retains its DNA and touches our hearts.
At The Greats Story Lab®, we weave all of these strands back together.
After spending most of my life reading and analyzing ancient texts, often in the earliest surviving papyri and manuscripts, my team and I are working with modern media and technologies to invite new audiences into the “Great Conversation” that spans millennia.
Everything we do points back to our core value: to lead with curiosity, always asking what it means to live well, by thinking deeply, and going on a journey to find out what it means to be truly human.

As technologies evolve, how do we lean into the rich and ongoing tradition of learning and knowledge we inherit from the past in new ways? Our approach to edumedia® is inspired by Plato’s Myth of Atlantis.

Connections between ancient wisdom and modern science run deep.

How do the stories shape the way we see ourselves and the world?

“A civilization that forgets how to tell its story crumbles and dies.”

In 2024, when the lab was little more than an idea, Courtney Becker joined me as Imagineer and Co-Founder. Together, we wanted to explore how to breathe new life into ancient wisdom for our digital world.
That same year, we launched Dante Minutes—our first vertical shorts series on YouTube—and began laying the foundations for The Boethius Project.
Fast forward to today, and that initial spark has become a global movement.
We’ve now launched and distributed our second series, Homer Minutes, and developed a free online course on Homer’s Odyssey in collaboration with Classics scholar Caleb Simone, Ph.D.
With over 23 Million views on Youtube and visitors tuning in to our website from 101 countries around the world, The Greats Story Lab® has grown at a breathtaking pace since its early days as a project of StoryRhetoric, LLC, when we recorded our first edumedia® prototypes in my bedroom closet!
We hope you’ll enjoy the journey.
As Walt Disney used to say, “We’re just getting started.”
Stay curious!
SJ Murray, July 2026.

Dante Minutes, Season 2 Trailer: Purgatory

Contact SJ

Your message will go straight to my personal email. To contact the Greats Story Lab®, use this page.

Beyond the Lab, you can find me at Baylor University, where I’m Professor of Great Texts & Creative Writing, and also teach in Film & Digital Media.

Welcome from SJ

We’ve all heard about it: we’re living through an age of distraction. As we scroll, stream, and post, fragments of information compete for our attention, pulling us away from the things that matter to us most.

Every day we face a choice; we can surrender to the noise, or anchor into the enduring power of storytelling to reclaim our attention, form character, and rebuild our inner lives.

At The Greats Story Lab®, we weave all of these strands back together.

After spending most of my life reading and analyzing ancient texts, often in the earliest surviving papyri and manuscripts, my team and I are working with modern media and technologies to invite new audiences into the “Great Conversation” that spans millennia.

Everything we do points back to our core value: to lead with curiosity, always asking what it means to live well, by thinking deeply, and going on a journey to find out what it means to be truly human.

“A civilization that forgets how to tell its story crumbles and dies.”

In 2024, when the lab was little more than an idea, Courtney Becker joined me as Imagineer and Co-Founder. Together, we wanted to explore how to breathe new life into ancient wisdom for our digital world.

That same year, we launched Dante Minutes—our first vertical shorts series on YouTube—and began laying the foundations for The Boethius Project.

Fast forward to today, and that initial spark has become a global movement.

We’ve now launched and distributed our second series, Homer Minutes, and developed a free online course on Homer’s Odyssey in collaboration with Classics scholar Caleb Simone, Ph.D.

With over 23 Million views on Youtube and visitors tuning in to our website from 101 countries around the world, The Greats Story Lab® has grown at a breathtaking pace since its early days as a project of StoryRhetoric, LLC, when we recorded our first edumedia® prototypes in my bedroom closet!

We hope you’ll enjoy the journey.

As Walt Disney used to say, “We’re just getting started.”

Stay curious!

SJ Murray, July 2026.

Contact SJ