Introduction / Jeremy Packer and Craig Robertson -- From New England to Illinois: the invention of (American) cultural studies / James Carey in conversation with Lawrence Grossberg, Part 1 -- Between cultural materialism and spatial materialism: James Carey's writing about communication / James Hay -- For a pragmatist perspective on publics: advancing Carey's cultural studies through John Dewey-- and Michel Foucault?! / Chris Russill -- Rethinking dependency: new relations of transportation and communication / Jeremy Packer -- Communication scholarship as ritual: an examination of James Carey's cultural model of communication / Gretchen Soderlund -- Transportation and communication: together as you've always wanted them / Jonathan Sterne -- Technology and ideology: the case of the telegraph revisited / John Durham Peters -- The public and the party period / John Nerone -- A ritual of verification?: the nation, the state, and the U.S. passport / Craig Robertson -- Configurations of culture, history, and politics / James Carey in conversation with Lawrence Grossberg, Part 2.