Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman (June 11, 1922 – November 19, 1982), was a Jewish Canadian sociologist and writer. Goffman received his B.A. at the University of Toronto in 1945 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1949 and 1953 respectively.

Author of the seminal text Asylums, for which he gathered information at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C., he describes "institutionalization" as a response by patients to the bureaucratic structures of a hospital setting. Goffman uses phenomenology to understand how humans perceive the interactions that they observe and take part in. To Goffman there is no real capital-T truth, but interpretations that are real to each individual.

Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his formulation of symbolic interaction in his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Although Goffman is often characterized as a symbolic interactionist, he tried to correct the flaws of symbolic interactionism. For Goffman, society is not a homogeneous creature. We must act differently in different settings. The context we have to judge is not society at large, but the specific context. Goffman suggests that life is a theater, but we also need a parking lot and a cloak room: there is a wider context lying beyond the face-to-face symbolic interaction.

He also authored Frame analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Many of his works form the basis for the sociological and media studies concept of framing.

Personal details
Goffman was born to parents Max and Anne Goffman in Manville, Alberta June 1, 1922. He died a widower, leaving behind one son. During his lifetime he was awarded the following:


 * Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), University of Manitoba, 1976
 * Guggenheim fellowship, 1977-78
 * In Medias Res, International Prize for Communicating, 1978
 * Doctor of Hebrew Literature/Letters (D.H.L.), University of Chicago, 1979
 * Mead-Cooley Award in social psychology
 * Forms of Talk was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award, 1981

During his career Goffman served at the following institutions:
 * University of Chicago, Division of Social Sciences, Chicago, assistant, 1952-53, resident associate, 1953-54
 * National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, visiting scientist, 1954-57
 * University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor, 1958-59, associate professor, 1959-62, professor of sociology, 1962-68
 * University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, 1968-82

Major works

 * 1956: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre.
 * 1961: Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York, Doubleday.
 * 1963: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Prentice-Hall.
 * 1974. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. London: Harper and Row.

External link

 * Erving Goffman: A Bibliography

Erving Goffman Erving Goffman Erving Goffman ארווינג גופמן Erving Goffman アーヴィング・ゴッフマン Erving Goffman