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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.
On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:
Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview
Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview
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Friday, July 29, 2016Lesley M. M. Blume on Hemingway's Hypermasculinity (REVIEW ESSAY) Through his personal and public life, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) exemplified the spirit of hypermasculinity, which he also celebrated in his breakthrough novel THE SUN ALSO RISES (1926). When Donald J. Trump today says that he wants to make America great again, he means that he wants to bring back the spirit of hypermasculinity that Hemingway helped popularize. As a result, Lesley M. M. Blume's book on Hemingway is timely.
Saturday, July 10, 2010John Bradshaw: A Sober Teacher for Our Troubled Times (Book Review) In his book RECLAIMING VIRTUE, John Bradshaw's has reclaimed and ambitiously expanded Aristotle's and Erik H. Erikson's views about human virtue and strength.
Thursday, September 24, 2020Geoffrey B. Williams' Portrait of the Artist T. S. Eliot (REVIEW ESSAY) Geoffrey B. Williams' book The Reason in a Storm: A Study of Ambiguity in the Writings of T. S. Eliot (1991) offers a portrait of the artist based on his life and work. Williams describes the pivot in Eliot's life from the atheistic earlier poetry up to 1925, to the theistic later poetry. The pivotal event in Eliot's life was his conversion to orthodox trinitarian Christianity in 1927.
Monday, May 26, 2014Two Visions in Conflict Today: Friedrich Nietzsche's Suprahuman Person vs. St. Ignatius Loyola's Jesuit (Pope Francis) Friedrich Nietzsche says God is dead. But I say that God is not dead. But old Christianity is dead. So today we have a conflict in the world between Nietzsche's vision of the Suprahuman Person and St. Ignatius Loyola's vision of the Jesuit -- exemplified now in the first ever Jesuit pope, Pope Francis. Pope Francis is trying to keep old Christianity from being buried in the dust heap of history. But will he reform the church?
Wednesday, April 23, 2014The Theocons Are Coming! The Theocons Are Coming! Joseph Bottum, the past editor of a paleo-conservative Roman Catholic magazine of opinion, has published a new book to rally his fellow Catholic theocons in time for the 2014 mid-term elections. He refers to himself and his fellow theocons as the Swallows of Capistrano. He sees them pitted against the Poster Children of the Protestant Perplex. But like other conservatives, he is up to no good.
Sunday, March 24, 2019Pope Francis on Evil and Satan As the result of Pope Francis' discernment of spirits, he has concluded that priest-sex-abuse of minors and the cover-up by bishops were evil. He has also attributed a decisive role to Satan in tempting priests and bishops to engage in such evil. But his would-be critics are not likely to argue that priest-sex-abuse of minors and the cover-up by bishops are not evil, even if his critics disparage his references to Satan.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019Looking Back and Looking Ahead When I look back on my OEN articles in 2019, I note that I frequently wrote about Pope Francis and about President Donald J. Trump -- usually in separate articles, but once I wrote about each man's charisma style in the same article. When I look back over the decade of the 2010s, during which I wrote most of my 400 OEN articles, the election of Pope Francis in 2013 and the election of President Trump in 2016 stand out.
Thursday, March 5, 2015Is Pope Francis Ready to Fight the Dragon -- the American Catholic Right? It has been announced that Pope Francis plans to issue an official papal encyclical about climate change. But the unprecedented new encyclical has not yet been formally promulgated and issued. However, the American Catholic right has already started decrying his anticipated encyclical. But is Pope Francis ready to fight the dragon -- the American Catholic right? Let's size up Pope Francis.
Sunday, October 28, 2018An Intellectual Biography of Pope Francis (REVIEW ESSAY) Massimo Borghesi of the University of Perugia in Italy has published a carefully researched intellectual biography of Pope Francis: The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Intellectual Journey, translated from Italian by Barry Hudock (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press Academic, 2018; orig. Italian ed., 2017). Overall, it is an informative book.
Saturday, November 4, 2017You Are Suffering from Complex PTSD (REVIEW ESSAY) Recently I discovered Pete Walker's 370-page 2013 self-help book titled Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. I found it massively informative, and I suspect that many OEN readers would also find it informative, especially those who are interested in thriving. You see, as Pete Walker delineates complex PTSD, virtually everybody is suffering from it to one degree or another. So all of us need to undertake recovery work.
Friday, July 27, 2018According to John Courtney Murray, Vatican II Embraced a Bottom-Up Conception of Society OEN readers know that Rob Kall loves top-down/bottom-up imagery. I recently read a 1966 essay by the American Jesuit theologian and public intellectual John Courtney Murray in which he uses top-down/bottom-up imagery to explain the significance of Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom. When I told Rob Kall about Murray's use of this imagery, he asked how would such a bottom-up approach work? So I decided to reply.
Sunday, February 18, 2018Pope Francis and Economic Inequality (REVIEW ESSAY) No doubt Pope Francis from Argentina has heard the cry of the poor. He has no serious rival on the world stage when it comes to criticizing economic inequality. In the new book Pope Francis and the Theology of the People, translated by Phillip Berryman (Orbis Books, 2017), the lay theologian Rafael Luciani of Caracas, Venezuela, contextualizes Pope Francis' thought in the Argentine strand of Latin American liberation theology.
Saturday, August 4, 2012Is Mitt Romney a Wimp, as NEWSWEEK Claims He Is? The latest NEWSWEEK cover story calls Mitt Romney a wimp. Is this just sensationalistic partisan editorializing masquerading as bipartisan commentary and critique? Or is the way to win the presidential election to sound manly and courageous -- as though you will be Superman if elected? But didn't we elect Superman in 2008? Shouldn't the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 try another shtick?
Friday, March 3, 2023Nathan Heller on "The End of the English Major" (REVIEW ESSAY) Nathan Heller's article "The End of the English Major" in The New Yorker magazine (issue dated March 6, 2023) is a probing discussion of the precipitous decline in English and history and other humanities majors in American colleges and universities since 2013. What happened to the humanities -- and why? What, if anything, can be done about the declining numbers of humanities majors?
Sunday, July 13, 2014Are the Five Male Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court Theocons? Wiriting the New York Times, Samuel G. Freedman, a Jewish journalism professor at Columbia University, calls attention to two Supreme Court 5-4 decisions involving supposed religious liberties: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Greece v. Galloway. In both cases, the five Justices in the majority were the five male Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court. These two cases raise the disturbing possibility that they are theocons.
Saturday, August 24, 2019"Substantialism" in Past Thinking about the Church (REVIEW ESSAY) The American Jesuit church historian John W. O'Malley has just published a new book, When Bishops Meet: An Essay Comparing Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II. It is a follow up to his three books about the Council of Trent, the First Vatican Council, and the Second Vatican Council. In his new book he describes past thinking about the church as involving "substantialism" (Collingwood's terminology), which Vatican II abandoned.
Sunday, November 22, 2009The Catholic Bishops' Views About Contraception and Abortion in the First Trimester Are Ridiculous The Catholic bishops are wrong to ban artificial contraception and abortion in the first trimester. Therefore, American Catholics should disregard what the Catholic bishops say.
Sunday, March 22, 2015Ayaan Hirsi Ali says Islam is not exactly a religion of peace, as President Obama says it is (REVIEW ESSAY) For understandable reasons, President Obama says that Islam is a religion of peace, because he doesn't want to upset the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world today by criticizing their religion. But progressives and liberals should not be taken in by his admittedly tactful characterization of Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali offers progressives and liberals a clear-sighted view of Islam in her new book HERETIC (2015).
Sunday, July 20, 2014Are the Roman Catholic Bishops Immoral? The the majority in the recent Hobby Lobby ruling involved the five male Roman Catholic Justices. The ruling once again calls attention to the disordered moral views of the Roman Catholic bishops about masturbation, artificial contraception and legalized abortion in the first trimester -- views that are the opposite of intelligent, reasonable and responsible -- so they are immoral, as are the bishops who advance these views.
Friday, February 14, 2020Pope Francis' New Apostolic Exhortation Is Visionary (REVIEW ESSAY) On February 12, 2020, Pope Francis issued his new apostolic exhortation about the Amazon region. Addressed to all persons of good will, it is visionary and, at times, poetic. I will highlight certain passages and suggest relevant connections with the thought of the American Jesuit polymath Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) -- and certain other authors.
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