Editor’s Introduction: A Bibliographic Exegesis of Goffman’s Sociology

Abstract

Erving Goffman’s writings are widely available, and widely read. His books and articles are endlessly reprinted (Stigma is currently in its 26th edition), and most of his books have been translated into several languages. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, for example, is currently available in ten different languages (with Hungarian and Chinese among them), is in its 24th year of almost continuous printing, and has sold over half a million copies. Few sociologists have not read some of his work: indeed, he is also often the only contact with sociology that anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, penologists, criminologists and other social scientists have ever had. His work is constantly mined for the insights buried there, and reviewers consistently describe his style with words selected from a highly appreciative vocabulary.

Thus a professional man may be willing to take a very modest role in the street, in a shop, or in his home, but, in the social sphere which encompasses his display of professional competency, he will be much concerned to make an effective showing. In mobilising his behaviour to make a showing, he will be concerned not so much with the full round of the different routines he performs but only with the one from which his occupational reputation derives.

(The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London, Penguin, 1971, P. 43).