Erving Goffman is considered by many to have been one of the most important sociologists of the post-war era. His close observation of everyday life and his concern with the ways in which people play roles and manage the impressions they present to each other led to his pioneering creation of a new dramaturgical perspective for sociology. His later analysis explored the field of deviance and many of his works in this area are now considered as sociological classics, including Asylums, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life and Stigma. This collection brings together many of today's leading sociologists to pursue and build upon the diverse aspects of Goffman's legacy. The contributors present chapters on key topics of Goffman's work. Issues covered include: * mental illness and institutionalism * the incorporation of literary intertexts in Goffman's writings * Goffman's relationship to ethnomethodology * the singularity of Goffman's ethnography Ranging from his critique of institutionalization to his understanding of the minute details of face-to-face interaction, this collection reveals the richness of Goffman's own work as well as his contribution to sociology today and will be essential reading for students and academics alike.

Erving Goffman effectively extends his argument in favor of a diagnosis of deviant behavior which takes account of the whole social situation.

A notable contribution to our understanding of ourselves. This book explores the realm of human behavior in social situations and the way that we appear to others. Dr. Goffman uses the metaphor of theatrical performance as a framework. Each person in everyday social intercourse presents himself and his activity to others, attempts to guide and cotnrol the impressions they form of him, and employs certain techniques in order to sustain his performance, just as an actor presents a character to an audience. The discussions of these social techniques offered here are based upon detailed research and observation of social customs in many regions.

"Not then, men and their moments. Rather, moment and their men," writes Erving Goffman in the introduction to his groundbreaking 1967 Interaction Ritual, a study of face-to-face interaction in natural settings, that class of events which occurs during co-presence and by virtue of co-presence. The ultimate behavioral materials are the glances, gestures, positionings, and verbal statements that people continuously feed into situations, whether intended or not. A sociology of occasions is here advocated. Social organization is the central theme, but what is organized is the co-mingling of persons and the temporary interactional enterprises that can arise therefrom. A normatively stabilized structure is at issue, a "social gathering," but this is a shifting entity, necessarily evanescent, created by arrivals and killed by departures. The major section of the book is the essay "Where the Action Is," drawing on Goffman's last major ethnographic project observation of Nevada casinos. Tom Burns says of Goffman's work "The eleven books form a singularly compact body of writing. All his published work was devoted to topics and themes which were closely connected, and the methodology, angles of approach and of course style of writing remained characteristically his own throughout. Interaction Ritual in particular is an interesting account of daily social interaction viewed with a new perspective for the logic of our behavior in such ordinary circumstances as entering a crowded elevator or bus." In his new introduction, Joel Best considers Goffman's work in toto and places Interaction Ritual in that total context as one of Goffman's pivotal works: "His subject matter was unique. In sharp contrast to the natural tendency of many scholars to tackle big, important topics, Goffman was a minimalist, working on a small scale, and concentrating on the most mundane, ordinary social contacts, on everyday life.'"

Part of the SAGE Social Thinker series, this book serves as a concise and inviting introduction to the life and works of Erving Goffman, one of the most prominent social theorists in postwar sociology. Goffman’s ideas continue to influence scholars in various fields and have also attracted many readers outside conventional academia. Goffman’s overall research agenda was the exploration of what he termed the interaction order—that is, the micro social order that regulates the co-mingling of people in each other’s immediate presence. He coined several new concepts (face-work, impression management, role distance, civil inattention, etc.) with which to grasp and understand the complexities and basic social restructuring of everyday life, many of which are now part of sociology’s standard vocabulary.