Acknowledgments

The present collection of essays developed from the first annual CRDM Research Symposium, “Materializing Communication and Rhetoric: Technologies, Infrastructures, Flows,” held on September 25 and 26, 2009. The event was organized by the Ph.D. Program in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media and was held in the historic Park Shops Building on the campus of North Carolina State University. We would therefore like to thank all the colleagues who accepted our invitation to share their work at that symposium and later to revise their essays for this book. We also thank the people who have supported the annual CRDM symposium at North Carolina State University: Jeffery Braden, Dean, and Vicki Gallagher, Associate Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences; Bill Kinsella, Director, Program in Science, Technology & Society; Ken Zagacki, Head, Department of Communication, and Tony Harrison, Head, Department of English. We extend a very special thank-you to the students, staff, and family members whose tireless efforts made this event possible: Robert Bell, Jacob Dickerson, David Gruber, Matt Morain, Shari Oliver, with additional assistance from Karla Lyles, Kevin Brock, Jon Burr, Jason Kalin, Seth Mulliken, Shayne Pepper, Jan Raymondi, Dana Squire, Jen Ware, Maurice Mathis, and Marylee Crofts. Videos of the symposium presentations are available online, at http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/symposium/videos.html.

The process of assembling the symposium essays into a book could not have been completed without the support of Barbie Zelizer, who agreed to include the book in her series, Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media Studies, and the guidance of the superb editorial staff at Routledge, Ruth Moody, Natalie Foster, and Emily Laughton. We thank them for helping us bring this project to fruition. Finally, we thank Myriam Bascuñan and Sarah Sharma for their patience and encouragement. Day in and day out, they helped us make time to finish this book.