WALTER 1. ONG, SJ
Former SLU faculty and a really remarkable guy. I've been trawling through the archives and interviewing former colleagues and students of Ong for an ongoing project, and I'm continuously struck by the personality that comes across. You don't really see it in his published works, but his lectures have these corny, not-really-a-joke jokes ("it's agreed that these epic poems were either written by Homer, or by another man of the same name") in them. Also, this essay is a good example of him touching on history, archaeology, musicology, ancient Greek, and a bit of Freud, so if you're like me and a hugely disorganized mess of interests, Ong's a lot of fun.
Seriously, if you get the chance, check out the archives, digitized or the whole thing. You can find his poetry from before the US entered WW2 all the way to discussions about flame wars in the early 90s.
