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 Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

(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 The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

(1996–2002). He is a former President of the American Philological Association and a Fellow of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

. From 2012-2018, he chaired the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies. O'Donnell writes and lectures on topics of the late

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

, 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 The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

for academic collaboration within the humanities. He has been involved with '' Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' since it was founded in 1990. 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 Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

and email connectivity.

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 Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

: 1998) outlines the history of writing and media from ancient Greek times to the present, while ''Augustine: A New Biography'' (

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

2005) was widely reviewed (e.g., ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'', ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''). 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 Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

's commentaries on the

Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their homel ...

, came out in 2019. * ''Cassiodorus'' (1979) University of California Press; * ''Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads: A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing'' (edited, with

Ann Shumelda Okerson Ann Shumelda Okerson (born c. 1950) is an American librarian and expert on the licensing of electronic resources and the place of digital technologies in academic and research libraries. Life and education Okerson was born in Austria circa 1950 ...

) (1995)

Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and resea ...

; * ''Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace'' (1998) Harvard University Press; * ''Augustine: A New Biography'' (2005) Ecco Press; * ''The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History'' (2008)

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York-based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquire ...

; * ''Pagans'' (2015)

; * ''The War for Gaul: A New Translation'' (2019)

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

;

Education

* 1972 A. B.

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

* 1975 Ph.D.

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Esoterica

O'Donnell's website includes a biographical sketch of Doughbelly Price. Price was a cowboy turned real estate agent in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Ch ...

. The biography includes a profile from ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'' in 1949 and feature audio clips of old cowboy songs by Price. 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."

Notes

External links

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:ODonnell, James J. 1950 births Living people Princeton University alumni Yale University alumni Georgetown University faculty