In my talk at the Ong Family "Mini-Reunion" last month, I referenced several Ong authors of fiction and non-fiction. Those who attended will recall that my father, John Doyle Ong, in his concluding remarks mentioned that I had somewhat short-changed the importance of Walter J. Ong, the Jesuit scholar whose prominence as a thinker and writer unarguably outshines anyone else in the family past or present (pace my writer-cousins!).
So as penance I offer this post. There is so much in the public domain about him and his work that I will not attempt a summary of my own, but instead I have assembled this portal into the life and work of Father Ong.
Enjoy!
A 2018 video tribute by Saint Louis University to Ong's intellectual legacy is here.
A comprehensive bibliography by Prof. Thomas Walsh of Saint Louis University is here.
A 1987 biographical portrait by Prof. Randolph Lumpp is here.
His Wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J._Ong
The Walter J. Ong Archive at Saint Louis University is here: http://libraries.slu.edu/collections/ong
His New York Times obituary is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/25/us/walter-j-ong-90-jesuit-teacher-and-scholar-of-language.html?scp=15&sq=Ong&st=cse
Father Ong was quoted many times in the NYT, one of the later examples is here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/reading-up-on-gutenberg-as-the-ipad-drops/?_php=true&_type=blogs&scp=379&sq=Ong&st=cse&_r=0
An excellent academic paper on his life and work by Prof. Thomas J. Farrell is here: http://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-110730320/in-memoriam-walter-j-ong-s-j-1912-2003
Another memorial article by Canadian journalist Jeet Heer is here: http://www.jeetheer.com/culture/ong.htm
John Walter, an archivist at Saint Louis University, has a blog about his work on the Walter Ong Collection here: http://johnwalter.blogspot.com/
A bibliography is here: http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-2997/
