The Walter J. Ong Collection
About Walter J. Ong, SJ |
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BIOGRAPHY
He was born November 30, 1912, in Kansas City, Missouri, finished his undergraduate studies there at Rockhurst College and then worked in commercial positions for two years before entering the Society of Jesus (or Jesuit Order) in 1935. He did his studies in philosophy (PhL) and theology (STL) at Saint Louis University, and graduate studies in English at Saint Louis University (MA) and Harvard University (PhD). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and of Alpha Sigma Nu and holds many honorary degrees, one of the more recent from the University of Glasgow. The French Government has named him Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. He served as President of the Milton Society of America and the Modern Language Association, and he was member of various national committees of the MLA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council on Education, as well as serving on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals The deeply interdisciplinary cast of Fr. Ong's work recognized in 1984 with his academic appointment as University Professor--which signals that he reports to no departmental chair or dean but is directly under the University's central administration. It is difficult to classify by subject exactly what he is teaching or writing about. When earlier he was Professor of English, decades of students used to say that his courses treated not really English but "Onglish," and he once explained in a letter that he did his graduate work in English because “I might say that 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.” As a Jesuit Catholic priest, Walter J. Ong, SJ, has been active in the ministry since his ordination as a priest in 1946 (he had entered the Society of Jesus in 1935). For decades he celebrated daily Mass in St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in St. Louis, MO, and, weekly and oftener, has administered there and elsewhere the sacrament of Reconciliation (formerly styled Confession). He has regularly directed others in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in various forms: in groups and in one-on-one individual direction. At North House, a former Jesuit residence in St. Louis, he engaged in the free tutoring provided there for young boys needing academic help.
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Page created: 12/22/2006 |
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