Time, Memory, and the Verbal Arts

Download or read book Time, Memory, and the Verbal Arts written by Dennis L. Weeks and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Ong pioneered the study of how orality and literacy mutually enrich each other in the evolution of human consciousness, arguing that verbal communication moves from orality to literacy and on to what he has termed the "secondary orality" of radio and television. The original essays in this volume explore the implications of Ong's work across the diverse fields of cultural history, literary theory, theology, philosophy, and anthropology. These scholars maintain that Ong's view of orality not only changes our readings of ancient and medieval texts, but that it also changes our understanding of the differing epistemologies of oral and literate cultures and of the coexistence of the oral and literate within a given culture.