Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face BehaviorIn a brilliant series of books about social behavior, including The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums, and Stigma, Erving Goffman has exposed all that is at stake when people meet face to face. Goffman’s work, once of the great intellectual achievements of our time, is an endlessly fascinating commentary on how we enact ourselves by our responses to and our readings of other people. From the exemplary opening essay of Interaction Ritual, “On Face-Work,” —a full account of the extraordinary repertoire of maneuvers we employ in social encounters in order to “save face”—to the final, and classic, essay “Where the Action Is,”—an examination of people in risky occupations and situations: gamblers, criminals, coal miners, stock speculators—Goffman astounds us with the unexpected richness and complexity of brief encounters between people. For Goffman, as for Freud, the extreme cases are of interest because of the light they shed on the normal: The study of the trapeze artist is worthwhile because each of us is on the wire from time to time. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Nature of Deference and Demeanor | 47 |
Embarrassment and Social Organization | 97 |
Copyright | |
2 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action activity actor appear arette avoid become behavior bets bullfighting called capacity casino cere ceremonial cern chance chance-taking character contests cial communication composure concern conduct consequential conversation conveyed course deference and demeanor delict duel embarrassment Emile Durkheim employed example expected expected value expression face face-to-face face-work fact fateful feel flustered gamble gang Georg Simmel gestures give given honor individual individual's James Bond keno kind maintain matter means ment mental moral nurses obliged occasion occurs offender one's opportunity organization outcome participants patients payoff matrix perform person physical pit boss play player poise portunity possible practice present psychiatrist psychotic recipient regard relationship risk ritual role rules San Francisco Chronicle seems self-conscious Similarly society Sociology someone sometimes spoken interaction spontaneous involvement suggested sustained tact talk tends thing threatened tion toss vidual Ward