James J. O'Donnell

James Joseph O'Donnell (born 1950) is a classical scholar and University Librarian at Arizona State University. He formerly served as University Professor at Georgetown University (2012-2015) and as Provost of Georgetown University from 2002–2012. O'Donnell previously served as Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing at the University of Pennsylvania (1996–2002). He is a former President of the American Philological Association and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. From 2012-2018, he chaired the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies.

James J. O'Donnell

O'Donnell writes and lectures on topics of the late Roman Empire, Augustine of Hippo, and also on information technology in the modern academic and cultural world. He was an early adopter of the World Wide Web for academic collaboration within the humanities. He has been involved with Bryn Mawr Classical Review since it was founded in 1990.[1] In 1994, he offered the first Internet MOOC when five hundred students around the world participated in his University of Pennsylvania seminar on the life and work of St. Augustine through gopher and email connectivity.[2]

Books

O'Donnell's books include more technical scholarly works on history and philosophy, with a special interest in Augustine of Hippo, but he has also three books that are addressed to a general audience. Avatars of the Word (Harvard University Press: 1998) outlines the history of writing and media from ancient Greek times to the present, while Augustine: A New Biography (HarperCollins 2005) was widely reviewed (e.g., The New Republic, The Economist, The New York Times).[3][4][5] An account of the end of Roman grandeur, The Ruin of the Roman Empire (HarperCollins: 2008), was widely praised. His Pagans was published in 2015. His latest book, a new translation of Julius Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic Wars, came out in 2019.

  • The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History (2008) Ecco Press; ISBN 0-06-078737-6
  • Augustine: A New Biography (2005) Ecco Press; ISBN 0-06-053537-7
  • Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (1998) Harvard University Press; ISBN 0-674-05545-4
  • Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads: A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing (edited, with Ann Shumelda Okerson) (1995) Association of Research Libraries; ISBN 0-918006-26-0
  • Pagans (2015) Ecco Press; ISBN 0-06-184535-3
  • The War for Gaul: A New Translation (2019) Princeton University Press; ISBN 0-69-117492-X

Education

Esoterica

O'Donnell's website includes a biographical sketch of Doughbelly Price. Price was a cowboy turned real estate agent in Taos, New Mexico. The biography includes a profile from Life in 1949 and feature audio clips of old cowboy songs by Price.[6]

The 2007 edition of the Edge - the third culture Annual Question O'Donnell offered positive words on humanity: "we turn out to be a stubbornly smart, resilient and persistent species, and we do not forget the most important things."[7]

Notes
  1. Bryn Mawr Classical Review (ISSN 1055-7660)
  2. For description, see: "Augustine on the Infobahn".; for O'Donnell's reflections on the current context, see "The Future Is Now, and Always Has Been".
  3. Fredriksen, Paula (14 July 2005). "Textual Healing". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 10 October 2008.
  4. "A biography of Augustine of Hippo". The Economist. 12 May 2005.
  5. Bowersock, G. W. (31 July 2005). "Augustine for the New Age". The New York Times.
  6. "Doughbelly Price".
  7. "Scientific Discoveries Are Surprisingly Durable". The Edge. 31 Dec 2006.
gollark: ```print "Hacked with Python 2 or Lua"```
gollark: (produced by the common Unix tool `haxxdump`)
gollark: 011d3b0 ecda fe42 f33d d112 2b8c 7e1d 24d2 11e5011d3c0 2475 ae6a bb0f 0c59 592b 3e75 6074 5f61011d3d0 ff42 a907 c773 c81f 3095 97ba 7fe2 5270011d3e0 c021 d886 1dfc 01eb f22a 0174 38cb ab3e011d3f0 2476 6efa 2bb0 6dde cd92 0222 5467 7221011d400 bb13 2647 77f7 8c51 6206 e40d 3c85 117c011d410 86bb 928f 2234 bb31 298e dd89 7209 6a00011d420 49b1 182b 52fc 6659 f720 c14c 7064 213c011d430 be13 5b7f 36db 9228 232a be39 1c9e 4065011d440 3e92 3fa8 a538 8a60 c599 7c88 9f72 9748011d450 8a5d fc83 b21b e48d 666a 8670 3d61 0225
gollark: I have made many a useless side project.
gollark: I mean, there's a difference between programming and, say, sysadmin stuff, but yes.
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