Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: a brief history of the National Communication Association / Pat J. Gehrke & William M. Keith -- Discovering communication: five turns toward discipline and association / J. Michael Sproule -- Paying lip service to "speech" in disciplinary naming, 1914-1954 / Gerry Philipsen -- The silencing of speech in the late Twentieth century / Joshua Gunn and Frank E.X. Dance -- Epistemological movements in the field of communication: an analysis of empirical and rhetorical/critical scholarship / James A. Anderson and Michael K. Middleton -- The scholarly communication of communication scholars: centennial trends in a surging conversation / Timothy D. Stephen -- Sexing communication: hearing, feeling, remembering sex/gender and sexuality in NCA / Charles E. Morris III and Catherine Helen Palczewski -- Liberalism and its discontents: black rhetoric and the cultural transformation of rhetorical studies in the Twentienth century / Reynoldo Anderson, Marnel Niles Goins, and Sheena Howard -- A critical history of the "live" body in performance within the National Communication Association / Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, John M. Allison Jr., and Ronald J. Pelias -- Listening research in the communication discipline / David Beard and Graham Bodie -- Conceptualizing meaning in communication studies / Brian I.Ott and Mary Domenico -- Communicative meeting: from pangloss to tenacious hope / Ronald C. Arnett -- Afterword: whats next?