The American Political Science Association’s annual meeting returns to Chicago next month, and to the hotel that housed many of the delegates and candidates during the notorious 1968 Democratic National Convention. Although the International Amphitheater, site of the convention itself, is gone now, the hotel still looks much the same as it did when delegates left their lights on to show solidarity with demonstrators across the street in Grant Park and a crowd of people, held back by the police, fell through a plate glass window into the hotel bar. For those of you attending the meeting, we include announcements of the third annual political communication “pre-conference” event, “Faith, Fun, and Futuramas,” and for a short course on teaching political psychology that might be of interest to political communication scholars.

Elsewhere in this issue, APSA Political Communication Division President Jarol Manheim offers a commentary after my own heart, despite the fact that it makes me feel old. Attempting to give his division’s collective memories a more permanent form, he shares the story of how the APSA political communication division was created and how the journal Political Communication was founded. No doubt a few other division members will wax nostalgic about the events he describes, and some newer members will discover the reasoning behind the customs of their division – which is exactly what collective memory is supposed to do for a community.

The ICA Political Communication Division’s short term memory is preserved in the minutes of the business meeting held earlier this summer during the conference in New Orleans.

Turning to the future, in addition to the APSA conference Labor Day weekend, there are a variety of upcoming meetings this fall, including the American Sociological Association annual meeting, the National Communication Association conference and several regional and specialized association meetings. Though it seems strange to start thinking about 2005 already, both of our sponsoring organizations’ calls for papers for their 2005 meetings have deadlines this fall, as do a number of regional communication and political science organizations.

We have included some new grant opportunities in this issue that may be more suitable for those doing humanistic, international, or comparative research. There are also two job opportunities posted.

As always, the books section is filled with good reading on American politics, mass media, political theory, and national and international politics around the world. In this issue, we’ve included links to the publishers’ websites so that you can order the books that interest you – impulse buyers beware.

Safe travel to Chicago,

Jill Edy