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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 Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to.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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Wednesday, September 22, 2021Geoffrey Sanborn on Melville's Value (REVIEW ESSAY) The seasoned Melville scholar Geoffrey Sanborn's short 2018 book The Value of Herman Melville (Cambridge University Press) provides Melville readers with hints about how to proceed to read his works fruitfully -- that is, in a way that will enhance their own personal psychological flourishing. In this respect, Sanborn's book aims to be a kind of self-help book for Melville readers.
Monday, September 13, 2021Sizing Up Melville for the 21st Century (REVIEW ESSAY) The 2018 third edition of the Norton Critical Edition of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is edited by the indefatigable Melville scholar and biographer Hershel Parker for 21st-century readers. Parker's five selections, headnotes, and footnotes in it help us size up Melville for the 21st century. Through my admittedly modest discussion here, I aim to add to Parker's far more ambitious efforts to size up Melville.
Monday, September 6, 2021Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker on Melville's Sensationalistic 1852 Novel (REVIEW ESSAY) The seasoned Melville scholars Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker teamed up to write Reading Melville's Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (Louisiana State University Press). Melville's sensationalistic 1852 novel Pierre features a deceased unfaithful husband (who resembles Melville's own deceased father), an incestuous mother-son relationship, and an incestuous brother-sister relationship (half-brother and half-sister).
Wednesday, September 1, 2021Hershel Parker on the Making of Melville the Poet (REVIEW ESSAY) The American Melville scholar Hershel Parker (born in 1935) published a massive two-volume biography of the American novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819-1891). Subsequently, Parker further researched Melville's life and work and then published the book Melville: The Making of the Poet. In it, Parker discusses certain aspects of Melville's life that I can connect with Walter J. Ong's discussion of residual orality.
Monday, August 23, 2021Some Reflections on the Melville/Hawthorne Relationship (REVIEW ESSAY) In my 1,850-word OEN article "Laurie Robertson-Lorant on Melville" (dated August 22, 2021), I briefly mentioned the platonic friendship between Herman Melville (1819-1891) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). In the present 3,000-word review essay, I set forth some further reflections on their mutually intense but short-lived relationship.
Sunday, August 22, 2021Laurie Robertson-Lorant on Melville (REVIEW ESSAY) Laurie Robertson-Lorant's 700-page Melville: A Biography provides a handy one-volume biography of the American novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819-1891). Because I have discussed Melville's 1876 18,000-line centennial poem Clarel in two previous OEN articles, I will highlight Robertson-Lorant's discussion of Melville's long poem in the present review essay.
Saturday, August 14, 2021Macey Perceptively Aligns Foucault with Nietzsche (REVIEW ESSAY) Recently, I read the 2021 English translation of Michel Foucault's posthumously published book Confessions of the Flesh. More recently, I turned to David Macey's book The Lives of Michel Foucault to enhance my understanding of Foucault's thought. In it, Macey perceptively aligns Foucault with Nietzsche. But neither Macey nor Foucault happens to advert explicitly to the relevant work of the American Jesuit Walter J. Ong.
Wednesday, August 4, 2021James Miller Is Candid About Michel Foucault (REVIEW ESSAY) In 2021, the English translation of the Nietzschean philosopher and political activist Michel Foucault's 400-page posthumous book Confessions of the Flesh, translated by Robert Hurley; edited and with a "Foreword" by Frederic Gros (New York: Pantheon Books) was published. After I read it, I set about reading James Miller's 1993 candid intellectual biography The Passion of Michel Foucault (New York: Simon & Schuster).
Sunday, July 25, 2021Walter J. Ong's and Michel Foucault's Explorations of Sexuality/Gender (REVIEW ESSAY) In the 1970s and 1980s, the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003) and the French philosopher and cultural historian Michel Foucault (1926-1984), evidently independently of one another, explored sexuality/gender. In the present review essay, I discuss certain features of their explorations.
Monday, July 19, 2021An Overview of Walter J. Ong's Thought (REVIEW ESSAY) The American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) is my favorite scholar. I have written about his thought previously in my lengthy OEN article "Walter J. Ong's Philosophical Thought" (dated September 20, 2020). In the present review essay, which nicely complements my lengthy OEN article, I write a more comprehensive account of Ong's thought.
Wednesday, July 14, 2021James Carroll Calls on Catholics to Resist Certain Church Teachings and Practices (REVIEW ESSAY) The American Catholic novelist and non-fiction writer and Boston Globe columnist James Carroll (born in 1943), a laicized former priest, has published a new book titled The Truth at the Heart of the Lie -- A Memoir of Faith (New York: Random House, 2021). In it, he calls on Catholics to resist certain Church teachings and practices.
Saturday, July 3, 2021Celebrating the Fourth of July 2021 (REVIEW ESSAY) In the spirit of celebrating the Fourth of July 2021, I celebrate certain aspects of the thought of the French philosopher and cultural historian Michel Foucault (1926-1984), the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003), and the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984).
Tuesday, June 29, 2021Some Reflections on Spiritual Exercises -- For Young Searchers I have some reflections to offer here for young searchers today who are searching for spiritual exercises that they might want to undertake. I will discuss the Spiritual Exercises of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola. But I will also consider spiritual exercises offered today by Jordan Peterson and by the late Michel Foucault.
Sunday, June 20, 2021My Interpretation of Vociferous Contemporary American Conservatives Today Today is Father's Day 2021. So today I will celebrate the thought of the American Jesuit Father Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). Figuratively speaking, Father Ong was a father figure to me in my adult life. In the process of celebrating his thought, I will indicate how I use his thought about print culture in Western culture to interpret vociferous contemporary American conservatives today
Tuesday, June 15, 2021Pope Francis Maintains His Doctrinally Conservative Approach The German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, made the news on June 4th by publishing his letter of resignation to Pope Francis. But Cardinal Marx had not been accused of any wrongdoing. However, he was moved by the "catastrophic" scandals (his term) involving priest sex abuses and bishop cover-ups. Days later, Pope Francis made the news by rejecting Cardinal Marx's resignation -- surprising Marx.
Wednesday, June 2, 2021Michel Foucault on Ancient Western Christianity (REVIEW ESSAY) Michel Foucault's new posthumous book Confessions of the Flesh, translated from the French by Robert Hurley; edited and with a "Foreword" by Frederic Gros (New York: Pantheon Books, 2021) is devoted to examining primary sources to discover the ways in which ancient Western Christians constructed a distinctively Western Christian self. But I see this process as involving the inward turn of consciousness (in Ong's terminology).
Sunday, May 9, 2021What Makes Pope Francis Tick? (REVIEW ESSAY) Because Pope Francis' 2015 eco-encyclical has been widely read, some people may wonder what makes the first Jesuit pope tick, so to speak. Fortunately, before the Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in March 2013, he himself explained his religious beliefs that make him tick in a preached retreat that he gave to his brother bishops of Spain. A record in English of his presentations has been published.
Saturday, May 1, 2021What Are Political Theologies of Sacred Rhetoric? (REVIEW ESSAY) What are political theologies of sacred rhetoric? Examples of political theologies of sacred rhetoric would include Pope Francis' widely read 2015 eco-encyclical and various speeches and writings of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Steven Mailloux has operationally defined and explained the expansive term political theologies of sacred rhetoric -- referring to religiously motivated political speech and activism.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021Louis Menand on Cold War Culture and Politics (REVIEW ESSAY) Harvard's fashionable scholar Louis Menand's new book The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021) is an accessible tour de force that is overflowing with colorful portrayals of persons in the twentieth century.
Thursday, April 15, 2021Certain Values of Activists in the 1960s Went Mainstream in the Early 1970s (REVIEW ESSAY) Ronald Brownstein's new 400-page 2021 book Rock Me on the Water: 1974: The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics (New York: Harper) is a love song to Los Angeles in the early 1970s. But it is also a valentine to certain values of activists in the 1960s: "suspicion of authority, greater personal freedom, more respect for marginalized groups, and increased tolerance of differences" (page 389).
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