James W. Carey and the conversation of culture / Lawrence Grossberg -- Asking the right questions / Joli Jensen -- Oral culture as antidote to terror and ennui / Mark Fackler -- The dark continent of journalistic ritual / Catherine A. Warren -- The politics of identity work / Lana F. Rakow -- Journalism without professional journalists? / Stuart Allan -- Media power, status politics, and partisanship / Frederick Wasser -- Communication ethics in postnarrative terms / Clifford Christians -- Philosophical foundations and distortions in the quest for Civitas / Robert Fortner -- The digital sublimation of the electrical sublime / Steven Jones -- Counterglobalization and other rituals against empire / Jack Bratich -- How scholarship matters / Barbie Zelizer.