NOTE: SLU Libraries' Digital Collections in CONTENTdm now contains most of the digitized materials in this exhibit, as well as a copy of Fr. Ong's "Ramus and Talon Inventory". Access the collection.

Welcome to the Walter J. Ong Archives at Saint Louis University

The Walter J. Ong Collection Web Site serves as a portal to provide scholars, students, and researchers with information about the Walter J. Ong Manuscript Collection, to host a digital repository of collection materials, and to serve as a comprehensive resource on the life and works of Walter J. Ong, S.J.

Walter Jackson Ong, S.J. (1912-2003) was a professor of English at Saint Louis University for over thirty years. Over the course of his career, Ong wrote a number of groundbreaking studies in the fields of orality and literacy studies. Some of these works include Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, The Presence of the Word, and Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue.

The site is divided into the following sections:

About the Collection - a description of the Walter J. Ong Manuscript Collection, which is kept in the Saint Louis University Archives.

Digital Collections - a grouping of digitized materials and online exhibits about Walter Ong.

About Ong - further information about Walter Ong, his life, and his work.