This is a profound and even revolutionary treatise that will challenge all those disciplines centrally or marginally concerned with discourse. The range of knowledge drawn upon to make the book's argument is simply breathtaking. Scholars in communication, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, sociology and cultural studies must read this absolutely new and refreshing philosophy of discourse. Without doubt, this book advances the human sciences.

Isaac E. Catt, Isaac E. Catt, Visiting Scholar, Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center at Duquesne University, Fellow, International Communicology Institute, and co-editor, Communicology: The New Science of Embodied Discourse

A meditation on the most fundamental issues of communication, Igor Klyukanov's book is imbued with a rich spirit of humanity. It is an odyssean wandering through the thickets of thought with several surprises and treasures along the way. The reader will reemerge wiser than before.

John Durham Peters, A. Craig Baird Professor, The University of Iowa

In this erudite and yet strikingly original contribution to the philosophy of communication, Igor E. Klyukanov theorizes communication as an experience of meaning that unfolds through a series of dialectical transformations. Following the author's journey through five "stagings" of communication from instrumental objectivity to blissful unity, we gather nuggets of epigram, etymology, and theoretical insight along the way. Klyukanov addresses the notoriously fragmented field of communication theory as a whole and offers a unifying vision.

Robert T. Craig, University of Colorado at Boulder

This book provides a systemic way of thinking about communication that is lacking in recent theory. By emphasizing the multi-dimensional and integrated manifestations of communication, how one 'staging' takes precedence over others under certain guises, or overlaps in other guises, Igor E. Klyukanov reveals what is so often taken for granted or otherwise glossed as essential to meaningful communication.

Andrew R. Smith, Edinboro University

In this complex exploration of communication theory, Klyukanov (Eastern Washington Univ.) asserts that communication is happening in "spacetime"-meaning it is constantly changing, restoring people and making them whole. Rejecting ontology, the author offers seven chapters in which he proposes that communication is a continuously moving process (meaningful experiences happen in "spacetime"); frames the stages of communication as naming via "invocation," "conversation" in the present moment, "construction" of a common world order, and "resignation" via self-awareness and initiation of meaning; asserts that the character of communication is ecological; and emphasizes that the voice of every single person matters. In the final chapter, Klyukanov briefly mentions the ethical position of "first, do no harm" and declares that the universe and communication are consubstantial, both everlasting and ever changing. Klyukanov analyzes the foundation of theory building in communication but exercises the rather unexpected tangential metaphors of air, water, earth, and fire. This is a book for those interested in investigational communication theory. Summing Up: Recommended.

Choice Reviews

A novel approach to the process of communication take by Igor Klyukanov in his groundbreaking study "A Communication Universe: Manifestations of Meaning, Stagings of Significance" is visible as soon as one opens the book and glances at the Contents....The major perspective Klyukanov explores in his book is naturalistic and evolutionary - in contrast to the multiplicity of revolutionary "turns" as man-made "stages" pertaining to the history of communication.

International Journal of Communication