Saint Louis University has established a new center of excellence with the creation of the Walter J. Ong, SJ, Center for Language and Culture. The Ong Center honors the work of Walter J. Ong, SJ (1912–2003), an internationally renowned scholar who spent his career in teaching and research at Saint Louis University, where he was Professor of English and of Humanities in Psychiatry, and later University Professor. He was also president of the Modern Language Association. Fr. Ong was a prominent scholar of Renaissance literature and rhetoric before expanding his own work—and the field itself—to cover cultural theory, literacy studies, and the impact of technology on human consciousness. Among his most influential and widely read books is Orality and Literacy: Technologizing the Word (1982).
The mission of the Center, which will be located in Pius XII Memorial Library, is to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship in these areas of study, and it will be host to a resident research scholar, an annual memorial lecture, fellowships, research seminars, and conferences. The Center is guided by a national advisory board of distinguished scholars and has already received generous support of $100,000 from the ICF Foundation. In partnership with the Ong Center, the Department of Special Collections in Pius XII Memorial Library will make available to researchers the unpublished papers, manuscripts, lectures, correspondence, audio recordings, and other materials of Walter Ong, both on site and through the Internet (see http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong). This material forms a unique and invaluable resource for the study of Walter Ong’s thought and for the advancement of research in the fields he helped to develop.
The Department of Special Collections is directed by Gregory A. Pass, Ph.D. The Ong Center is directed by Sara van den Berg, Ph.D., chair of the English Department at Saint Louis University.
For more information, contact Sara van den Berg (314-977-3010) or Gregory A. Pass (314-977-3096).
