Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912 2003), was University Professor of Humanities at Saint Louis University, where he taught for thirty-six years. His books include Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness, Interfaces of the WordStudies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture, and Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture, all from Cornell; Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word; The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History; and Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason.