2004 Call for Papers

The National Communication Association will host its 90th Annual Meeting, November 11-15, 2004 in Chicago.  Our convention hotel is Chicago Hilton and Towers.

Martha Solomon Watson, NCA First Vice President, is the primary convention planner.  Please submit all questions to her programming assistant, Danielle Jackson at:  danielle.jackson@ccmail.nevada.edu.  Martha Watson can be reached at the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Phone: 702-895-3291; Fax: 702-895-4231; Email: mwatson@ccmail.nevada.edu.

Search for a paper, proposal or unit planner contact at: http://convention.allacademic.com/nca2004/call.html.

Convention Theme:  Moving Forward/Looking Back

The theme for the 2004 annual National Communication Association convention is Moving Forward/Looking Back.

Since this convention will mark the 90^th anniversary of the founding of NCA, this theme encourages us to explore Hannah Arendt’s notion that the present is the moment between past and future and that while the past propels us forward, the future forces us back.  Thus, the program theme encourages participants to consider what the past can tell us about our future as a discipline and what the future can help us treasure and retrieve from our past.  As we celebrate our 90^th birthday (and there will be a birthday cake!), we can embrace our accomplishments and envision our future. 

Moving Forward encourages members to look toward the future of our discipline.  Past convention themes have urged us to reach out and reach in, to color outside the lines, to become an engaged discipline and to reexamine and radicalize our roots.  Underlying these themes has been the notion that communication, in all its manifestations, is a dynamic discipline, always learning from other disciplines and taking inspiration from new sources.  Programs that respond to this part of the convention theme might ask questions like:  What new areas are emerging in communication studies?  How will established areas change and develop?  What are the sources for new ideas and paradigms for communication studies?

Looking Back prompts members to take stock of our past.  In this part of the program, I hope that members will consider what we can and should celebrate in our history.  Are there seminal essays or books that deserve our attention in articulating how they have shaped our field?  Are their individuals whose body of work merits special attention?  Have there been critical events or moments that we need to recall, for good or ill?  The goal here is to capture our past as it moves us toward our future. 

Moving Forward/Looking Back provides us an opportunity to explore the connections between past and future.  In these programs we have the opportunity to link our past with our future.  Some programs might want to consider the scholarship of the past that might have the most profound impact in the future.  Others might consider what pedagogical practices might wither or flourish in the light of emerging technologies.  I hope that as members consider this theme they will be creative and daring in their proposals.

In building proposals, I strongly encourage members to seek out new collaborations.  In particular, I hope that planners will seek ways to explore how one area might impact another through cross-fertilization.  For example, a planner might consider what intercultural communication could offer to public address studies.  Through seeking new partnerships in planning---and these partnerships may extend outside NCA---divisions can, I hope, produce provocative, innovative programs.

Program Theme Spotlight Panel Proposals

Any unit or NCA member may propose a special spotlight program that addresses the Convention theme.  Such proposals should go directly to the First Vice President’s programming assistant, Danielle Jackson at:  danielle.jackson@ccmail.nevada.edu.  The First Vice President will notify the person submitting the proposal whether it is accepted for inclusion in the 2004 Convention.  Programs accepted for this special series will not count against a unit’s program allotment.