Father Ong is an internationally distinguished scholar who first met Marshall McLuhan when Ong took his courses in criticism and Renaissance literature at St. Louis University in 1938. A prolific writer and respected scholar, Ong is the author of many books and articles on Renaissance literary and intellectual history, contemporary culture, and the evolution of consciousness. Ong is a Jesuit priest and Professor Emeritus at Saint Louis University. He is the author of Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word  (1982).