Meaningful Relationships: Talking, Sense, and Relating (SAGE Series on Close Relationships)

"Enterprising researchers (especially within the discipline of sociology, in which efforts to reconcile psychological and sociological approaches to collecting and analyzing data already are under way) likely will find the two books useful as catalysts in the development of methodologies that draw simultaneously upon social psychology and communication studies." --Stanley O. Gaines Jr. in Journal of Marriage and the Family Meaningful Relationships profoundly challenges the reader to step off traditional academic pathways in the pursuit of understanding the nature of human relationships and plunge into this most important theoretical advance in the field to date. Author Steve Duck argues that relationships are never "done deals" but, rather, continually unfolding and in need of perpetual responsive action and construction. Central to this discussion is the author′s contention that relationships are solidly based in the recognition of shared meaning discovered in the way we metaphorically represent the world to ourselves and to others through everyday talk and symbols. Theories presented in Meaningful Relationships do not unfold in a sequential manner, but rather, are approached from different angles showing simultaneous relationships in different contexts. An outstanding addition to the Sage Series on Close Relationships, this book is stimulating in its novel approach and will be of interest to scholars and professionals in Psychology, Interpersonal Communication, Sociology, Family Studies and Social Work.

Steve Duck taught in the United Kingdom before taking up the Daniel and Amy Starch Distinguished Research Chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa. He has been a professor of communication studies, an adjunct professor of psychology, and a former Dean’s Administrative Fellow and is now Chair of the Rhetoric Department. He has taught interpersonal communication courses, mostly on relationships but also on nonverbal communication, communication in everyday life, construction of identity, communication theory, organizational leadership, and procedures and practices for leaders. More recently, he has taught composition, speaking, and rhetoric, especially for STEM students. By training an interdisciplinary thinker, Steve has focused on the development and decline of relationships, although he has also done research on the dynamics of television production techniques and persuasive messages in health contexts. Steve has written or edited 60 books on relationships and other matters and was the founder and, for the first 15 years, the editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. His book Meaningful Relationships: Talking, Sense, and Relating won the G. R. Miller Book Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Steve cofounded a series of international conferences on personal relationships. He won the University of Iowa’s first Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award in 2001 and the National Communication Association’s Robert J. Kibler Memorial Award in 2004 for “dedication to excellence, commitment to the profession, concern for others, vision of what could be, acceptance of diversity, and forthrightness.” He was the 2010 recipient of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Helen Kechriotis Nelson Teaching Award for a lifetime of excellence in teaching, and in the same year was elected one of the National Communication Association’s Distinguished Scholars. He received the NCA’s 2019 Mark L. Knapp Award in Interpersonal Communication for career contributions to the study of interpersonal communication. He hopes to make it to the Iowa State Fair one day.