Goffman's Legacy

Georg Simmel remarked that his legacy was like cash, distributed to many heirs, used at will. If so, Erving Goffman's legacy is a string of sparkling, glittering, shimmering jewels, transforming each recipient into a lapidary. The contributors to Goffman's Legacy, among the wisest of our discipline, use the bequest to impressive advantage. We find new facets of Goffman's life and writing, and, so, leave with a charge to shape and polish our own efforts. The depth and beauty of Goffman's work is matched by the range and skill of these assessors. -- Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University
Micro-sociology in the later twentieth century is something like an intelligence test for the sophisticated, and this collection of essays on Goffman and his peers shows off the full range of cleverness. We also get a solid biographical picture of how Goffman carried out his famous studies and of his attitudes towards his own work and towards the opposing schools of micro-sociology in which he was often mistakenly labeled. Maybe some of the chapters are too brilliant for their own good, but they make some challenging contributions both as to what Goffman's legacy was, and what sociologists have done with it and have yet to do. -- Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania
Just as Goffman contributed bountifully to contemporary sociology, this current volume will benefit scholars of many diverse disciplines. It is a wonderful resource capturing the influences on Goffman's thinking, the parallel movements of academic thought from the 1950s to 1970s, and his legacy wrought through current sociological, phenomenological, ethnomethodological, and feminist thought. Highly recommended. -- Elizabeth MCardell, PhD
Treviño has deftly assembled a wide-ranging and international collection that includes many of the most justly distinguished analysts of Goffman as theorist, as sociologist, as contributor to the analysis of social life, as intellectual. Also represented are fresh, astute voices that demonstrate Goffman's continuing relevance today. Goffman's Legacy will serve present and future students of Goffman well indeed. -- Carol Brooks Gardner, Indiana University