Tag Archives: Ong
Electric Rhetoric – An Isocratic Literacy Theory
I contend that we do not now know Isocrates’ rhetorical theories well enough, because we have not understood classical Greek rhetoric and writing practices for our electrified time. (33) Welch, Kathleen E. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. The MIT Press, 1999. In this Chapter 2 of Electric Rhetoric, Welch argues that…
Presence of the Word – Word as Sound
[C]ultures which do not reduce words to space but know them only as oral-aural phenomena, in actuality or in the imagination, naturally regard words as more powerful than do literate cultures” (112). Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press,…
Presence of the Word – Plato’s Take
Spoken words are events, engaged in time and indeed in the present. Plato’s ideas were the polar opposite: not events at all, but motionless “objective” existence, impersonal, and out of time. (34). Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press,…
Presence of the Word – Back to Oral (Not)
Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. As I’ve noted many times through this blog, I am not suggesting through my focus on this unique form of aural/visual communication that we are on some track to return to…
Presence of the Word – Electronic Era
Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. Ong discusses the third stage of verbalization and notes that the process is sequential: The past century has seen the world enter into a new stage beyond orality and script and…
Presence of the Word
Man communicates with his whole body, and yet the word is his primary medium. Communication, like knowledge itself, flowers in speech (1). Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. This work, published in 1967, reveals many of the…
ATTW Proposal Accepted
Happy New Year, All! Following my October 24th post of a proposal to present at the ATTW conference, I recently got word that it was accepted. I am certainly going to accept the offer, and I’m thoroughly excited for the opportunity to put out to the academic community this concept (Simulating Synchronicity in the Online…
Residually Cyclical Style 2
Continuing the conversation on Residually Cyclical Styles (the cyclical nature of orality and literacy), I realize the next (or most recent) cycle.
Ong and Heim on Digital Literacy & Transformation Theory
Heim, Michael. 1999 (orig. 1987). “The Theory of Transformative Technologies.” Electric Language, 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ong, Walter. 1982. “Some Theorems.” Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge. Here are a couple articles/chapters and the questions I was asked related to them:
Agonistically Toned
Ong also discusses that a characteristic of orally-based thought and expression is that it is, what he deems, agonistically toned. Specifically, he discuses that in oral cultures, each narrative and other piece of information is with the knower. This is to say, there is little way to decipher any difference between the known and the…