Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) March 23, 2024: I recently turned 80. Many of the people who were important to me in my adult life have died - but I still think of them fondly.
When I look back over my adult life, I tend to divide it into the following periods:
(1) 1969-1979: For ten years, I taught writing courses in the context of open admissions in the City of St. Louis and in New York City. In various levels of writing courses, I taught about one thousand black inner-city youth and about one thousand white youth. In 1973, I completed my doctoral dissertation in education at Saint Louis University on open admissions - including a ninety-page review of related literature on open admissions. During this period in my life, I started publishing articles about open admissions' students in professional journals. However, I did not refer in them to my 1973 doctoral dissertation or its ninety-page review of related literature. Today, in 20/20 hindsight, this omission now strikes me as a serious oversight on my part. Had I adverted in my publications to my ninety-page review of related literature in my 1973 doctoral dissertation, I could have further established my ethos (to use Aristotle's terminology). (I further discuss my 1973 doctoral dissertation on open admissions below.)
Yes, during the years 1969-1979, the Vietnam War and anti-war protests were going on. However, in the somewhat digressive present essay, I am not going to discuss various political and social developments that may have contributed to the national trends in favor of open admissions and of two-year community colleges. My neural networks have already been sufficiently activated in my already limited chain-of-thought associations throughout the present essay - perhaps enough to tax your patience - without introducing further information into the present essay about various political and social developments in the period 1969-1979.
(2) 1979-1987: I was in the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus), during which time I deepened my study of philosophy and theology. During this period in my life, I continued publishing articles in professional journals. Yes, because I had been in the Jesuits, I was fascinated when Pope Francis (born in 1936) was elected pope in March 2013 - the first Jesuit to be elected pope. I have profiled the doctrinally conservative pope in my widely read OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019): Click Here
More recently, I have written further about the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis in my Most OEN article "Pope Francis, David French, and Walter Ong on Gender Differences" (dated March 3, 2024):
Even though I routinely characterize Pope Francis as doctrinally conservative, I should also note here that his 2015 eco-encyclical was the most widely read encyclical ever written by a pope - and few people would characterize it as conservative. (It is available in English and other languages at the Vatican's website.)
Moreover, the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis has aroused the vociferous opposition of certain conservative Catholics, including certain conservative American Catholics. The Italian philosopher and papal biographer Massimo Borghesi (born in 1951) discusses this conservative opposition in his 2021 book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic; orig. Italian ed., 2021).
For broader discussions of neoconservatism, see the following two books by American authors: (1) Peter Steinfels' The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics (Simon and Schuster, 1979); and (2) Gary Dorrien's The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press, 1993).
(3) 1987-2009: I taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth; for further information about my teaching at UMD, such as my teaching of Advanced Writing courses to juniors and seniors regularly, and my teaching an introductory survey course on the Bible once a year, see my somewhat elaborate UMD homepage and click on the prompt for Courses to see the drop-down menu: www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell I retired from teaching at UMD at the end of May 2009.
During this period in my life, I continued publishing articles in professional journals, and I wrote an introductory-level book about the life and work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter Jackson Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) titled Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (Hampton Press, 2000; revised and expanded second edition, 2015). It received the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field Media Ecology, conferred by the Media Ecology Association in 2001.
(4) 2009-to-the present: I continued publishing articles in professional journals, and I enjoyed my retirement years by pursuing various improvements to my home in Duluth and by writing op-ed commentaries periodically as the spirit has moved me - and publishing more than 600 articles at opednews.com.
Now, I recently looked back over my life and work in my aptly titled OEN article "Thomas J. Farrell on Thomas J. Farrell" (dated November 17, 2023):
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