JAMES J. O'DONNELL 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. Since 2012, he chairs the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies.?In 1990, he co-founded?Bryn Mawr Classical Review, the second online scholarly journal in the humanities ever created.
He is the author of?Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace;?Augustine: A New Biography;?The Ruin of the Roman Empire;?and, most recently, Pagans.?He has published widely on the cultural history of the late antique Mediterranean world and is a recognized innovator in the application of networked information technology in higher education. ?