James J. O'Donnell James J. O'Donnell is Professor of Classical Studies and Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1981. He holds degrees from Princeton and Yale and has published widely on the cultural history of the late antique Mediterranean world as well as, more recently, the cultural and implications of information technology for teaching and learning. His latest book is Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (Harvard Univ. Press, 1998).