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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 Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to.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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Saturday, December 28, 2013Ten Guys on Fox News Commented on Alleged "Wussification" in America in 2013 Over at Media Matters, Michelle Leung and Ellie Sandmeyer have rounded up ten examples from Fox News in 2013 in which different commentators have alleged the "wussification" of America. Some of the alleged examples are humorous, but not all of them. But these ten examples show the masculine identity crisis in America today. The anti-feminine term "wussification" points to deeper issues in the commentators' psyches
Thursday, September 22, 2016Rabbi Sacks' New Book of Essays on Ethics (REVIEW ESSAY) Progressives and liberals who are interested in political philosophy might want to consider taking a look at Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks' new book of essays on ethics. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University, and he knows a lot about our American cultural and political history. You will probably not be bored with his new book, especially if you are interested in the ideas of covenant and equality and freedom.
Friday, August 30, 2019Pope Francis = "Open Closure"; But Catholic Traditionalists = Closed-Systems Thought When Pope Francis was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, he engaged in religious dialogues with Rabbi Abraham Skorka that have been published in English as the book On Heaven and Earth. In the new book When Bishops Meet: An Essay Comparing Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II, the church historian John W. O'Malley says, "Never before in the entire annals of Christian history had a Catholic prelate ever engaged in such an encounter."
Friday, November 17, 2023Thomas J. Farrell on Thomas J. Farrell (REVIEW ESSAY) My 600th OEN article was titled "Thomas J. Farrell on Walter J. Ong, S.J." (dated November 7, 2023). Upon further reflection after I published it, I decided that a follow-up article about my life and professional publications is warranted. In short, who is the author of those 600 OEN articles? And where am I coming from?
Sunday, July 16, 2023Marcia Pally on White Evangelicals (REVIEW ESSAY) Marcia Pally's wide-ranging and learned short book White Evangelicals and Right-Wing Populism: How did We Get Here? (Routledge, 2022) explores how Donald J. Trump was able to appeal to certain conservative white evangelicals in 2016 and 2020. I found it to be an informative book.
Friday, September 22, 2023Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M., on Ecophobia (REVIEW ESSAY) Today I sing of Father Daniel P. Horan's superb column titled "Considering the spiritual roots of ecophobia amid climate change" (dated September 21, 2023) at the website of the National Catholic Reporter.
Saturday, December 24, 2022Paul A. Soukup, S.J., on a Media Ecology of Christian Theology (REVIEW ESSAY) The American Jesuit Paul A. Soukup (born in 1950; Ph.D. in communication studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1985) in communication studies at Santa Clara University in California explores a media ecology of Christian theology in his new 2022 book A Media Ecology of Theology: Communicating Faith throughout the Christian Tradition (Baylor University Press), in which he draws of the American Jesuit Walter J. Ong's thought.
Thursday, April 13, 2017Our Dionysian Crucible and Trump's White Christian Voters (REVIEW ESSAY) We in Western culture today are undergoing the Dionysian crucible involved in the end of print culture 1.0 and the emergence of print culture 2.0. Our contemporary oral culture 2.0, powered by communications media that accentuate sound, resonates with our collective unconscious to renew the Dionysian spirit of oral culture 1.0. But Dennis R. MacDonald shows in his new book that the Dionysian crucible is in the Gospel of John.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017Mark Lilla's Polemic about Identity Politics in the Democratic Party is Timely (REVIEW ESSAY) Today practitioners of identity politics are in power in the Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party is the out-of-power party both at the federal level of government and at the state level in many states. In his polemical new book, Mark Lilla critiques identity politics in the Democratic Party. In my estimate, the practitioners of identity politics in the Democratic Party should temper their brand of identity politics.
Thursday, June 18, 2015Why Progressives and Liberals Should Be Wary of Pope Francis' Encyclical About the Environment No doubt the Roman Catholic Church suffered an enormous loss of credibility as the result of the priest-sex-abuse scandal and cover up. Kieran Tapsell has explained how the church's canon law contributed to that scandal and cover up. But Pope Francis has NOT yet changed the church's canon law to stop further clergy abuse and cover ups. Instead, he has issued an encyclical about the environment to distract us.
Monday, December 23, 2019Culturally Contextualizing the Gospels (REVIEW ESSAY) In Pope Francis' 2013 apostolic exhortation, he claims that the gospel message is trans-cultural (paragraph 117). But M. David Litwa culturally contextualizes the canonical gospels in the ancient Mediterranean thought-world in his accessible new book from Yale University Press -- as have the biblical scholars Dennis R. Macdonald and Werner H. Kelber, among others. I will argue that the pope's claim may not be entirely true.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011In Defense of American Exceptionalism and Christian Social Ethics (BOOK REVIEW) Unfortunately, we are living through an Ayn Rand revival. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who claims to be a Christian, is a great Ayn Rand fan. But Gary Dorrien's recent books about Christian social ethics can serve as a healthy antidote to the Ayn Rand revival. Indeed, his account of the American tradition of social ethics can help us Americans today to appreciate our American exceptionalism.
Monday, March 13, 2017How Women Polarized American Politics (REVIEW ESSAY) According to Marjorie J. Spruill's new book, women polarized American politics. For Spruill, pro-feminist women known as second-wave feminists and anti-feminist women known as conservatives such as Phyllis Schlafly polarized American politics. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a second-wave feminist. But in the parlance of second-wave feminists, so-called President Trump, who was endorsed by Phyllis Schlafly, is a male chauvinist pig.
Friday, May 1, 2015A Reply to Both David Brooks and N. D. B. Connolly Regarding the Baltimore Crisis Both the white conservative columnist David Brooks and the African American academic N. D. B. Connolly to publish op-ed pieces in the New York Times about the Baltimore crisis. Neither piece is entirely without merit -- or very penetrating. Drawing of the work of the American cultural historian and theorist Walter J. Ong, S.J., I propose to discuss the male identity crisis in connection with the death of Freddie Gray.
Sunday, March 27, 2011ALL THINGS SHINING Does Not Shine (BOOK REVIEW) In their book ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE, Hubert Dreyfus in philosophy at Berkeley and Sean Dorrance Kelly in philosophy at Harvard review selected highlights of Western cultural history. But they are not familiar with Walter Ong's work about Western cultural history. As a result, Dreyfus and Kelly shed no new light on Western cultural history.
Friday, August 24, 2018James Carroll's Critique of Roman Catholicism's Ethic of Sex In "After Pennsylvania, What Pope Francis Should Say in Ireland" in the New Yorker (dated Aug. 22, 2018), James Carroll, a practicing Catholic, critiques Roman Catholicism's ethic of sex. His critique has merit. But I propose to connect his critique not only with Stephen Greenblatt's 2017 book on Adam and Eve, but also with the American Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray's 1967 critique of the classicist worldview.
Saturday, May 13, 2023A. E. Orobator, S.J., on Vatican II in Africa (REVIEW ESSAY) Because I am interested in Africa, I want to highlight here the Nigerian Jesuit theologian A. E. Orobator's "The Impact, Reception, and Implementation of Vatican II in Africa" in the new 800-page 2023 book The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II, edited by the lay Catholic theologians Catherine E. Clifford of Saint Paul University in Ottawa and Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University in Philadelphia (pp. 657-675).
Saturday, March 7, 2020Joe Biden today may sound like a normal person Michelle Cottle, a member of the Editorial Board of the New York Times that endorsed two women in the Democratic primary, has stepped out from behind the cover of the Editorial Board to post op-eds with her own byline recently -- most notably "The Resurrection of Joe Biden" (dated March 6, 2020). In delineating certain weaknesses of Joe Biden, Cottle credits Elizabeth Warren with "rhetorical precision" -- that Biden lacks.
Sunday, April 21, 2013Joan Walsh's Analysis of What's the Matter with White People (REVIEW ESSAY) In the new paperback edition of her election-year book WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH WHITE PEOPLE, Joan Walsh does not gloat about President Obama's re-election in 2012. But she recaps salient highlights of the 2012 election results. More importantly, she suggests that many white people who did not vote for him are mourning. If she's right, this may be good news, provided they can work through their mourning in a healthy way.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011Has Susan Anderson Discovered the Big Breakthrough for Self-Help Therapy? (BOOK REVIEW) In her new book TAMING YOUR OUTER CHILD, Susan Anderson claims that Outer Child work is very effective in helping people learn how to change their behavior. With so many of our fellow Americans in prison for misbehaving in one way or another, we should all hope that she is right. If she is, then Outer Child work could be a big breakthrough in self-help therapy.
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