GONZAGA TO HOST INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE FEB. 7-8 CELEBRATING THOUGHT OF WALTER J. ONG, S.J.
Technology, Rhetoric, and Cultural Change: Walter J. Ong, S. J. in the Age of Google, Facebook, and Twitter?
SPOKANE, Wash. Gonzaga University will host an interdisciplinary conference Feb. 7-8 celebrating the work of Jesuit scholar and teacher Walter J. Ong, considered among the foremost theorists of rhetoric in the 20th century. The conference is titled, ?Technology, Rhetoric, and Cultural Change: Walter J. Ong, S. J. in the Age of Google, Facebook, and Twitter.?
A student of Marshall McLuhan and Perry Miller, Father Ongs dissertation on the importance of Peter Ramus, a 16th century logician who developed a deeply influential pedagogy, brought him an international audience. Over the course of his long career, Ong published several books and hundreds of essays, most arguing that the technology of human communication is reflected, however indirectly, in human consciousness.
This conference will celebrate Fr. Ong´s legacy and the tradition of Jesuit scholarship. As enthusiasts of new media daily claim its transformative status, the conference will explore ? using the lens of Walter Ong?s scholarship ? these powerful new communication tools and the emerging world they promise.
Gonzaga Academic Vice President Patricia O Connor Killen will offer a welcome at 5 p.m., Feb. 7, followed by a keynote lecture by English Professor Sara van den Berg, of St. Louis University, who will discuss ?The State of Ong Scholarship.? Offering the concluding keynote lectures on Feb. 8 at 3:15 p.m. will be Regis University religious studies Professor Randolph Lumpp, who will discuss ?Going Global with Walter Ong: The Society and the Site,? followed by a lecture from Gonzaga communication Professor John Caputo will discuss ?Walter Ong: How The Seamless Web of Technology is Restructuring Consciousness.? The conference, to be held in the Jepson Center for the School of Business Administration (click for campus map), features scholars from throughout the world who will present lectures on the following themes: Ong and Writing/Literature; Orality; Language Studies; and Ong and Philosophy. Click the following link to view a list of conference participants. To register online for the conference, visit the following website.
Known for his work in Renaissance literature, intellectual history, and the evolution of consciousness, Fr. Ong authored more than 450 publications and the perennially popular ?Orality and Literacy,? which was translated into a dozen languages, both European and Asian. A Saint Louis University Professor Emeritus, the William E. Haren Professor Emeritus of English, and Professor Emeritus of Humanities in Psychiatry, Fr. Ong?s scholarship has influenced numerous fields and countless scholars. He gave lecture tours in Western Africa, Japan, and across Europe.
Fr. Ongs work was deeply interdisciplinary. His scholarship was difficult to classify by traditional disciplines. His students labeled his courses not English but Ong-lish for his vast treatment of topics in any class. He explained in a letter that he did his graduate work in English because ?English seemed intellectually and culturally roomier and more open than other subjects. It could encompass what they did and more ? could open the way into almost anything.?
The Walter J. Ong, S.J., Center for Language, Media and Culture at St. Louis University is an academic focal point that promotes interdisciplinary research in the humanities.
Fr. Ong was active until the end of his life. His last article, ?Digitization Ancient and Modern: Beginnings of Writing and Today?s Computers,? published in 1998, won the Media Ecology Association?s Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology in 2000. He died in 2003.
For more information, please visit the conference website or contact Megan Taylor<mailto:taylorm@gonzaga.edu> via email or at (509) 313-3567. Media seeking more information should contact Professor Caputo<mailto:caputo@gonzaga.edu> via email or at (509) 313-6656 or Peter Tormey<mailto:tormey@gonzaga.edu> in Gonzaga University News Service via email or at (509) 313-6132.
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