Erving Manuel Goffman: Biographical Sources of Sociological Imagination

This book, the first comprehensive biography of Goffman, shows how key turns in Goffman’s career reflected dramatic events in his family and personal history.The approach adopted in this investigation sheds new light on Goffman’s scholarship which has had an enormous and continuous impact across the social sciences and humanities.

Dmitri N. Shalin is professor of sociology and director of the Center for Democratic Culture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. Shalin is coordinator of Justice & Democracy Forum series, editor of the Social Health of Nevada Report, director of the Erving Goffman Archives and International Biography Initiative, and organizer of international forums on Russian politics and culture. His research interests and publications are in the areas of biohermeneutics, pragmatism, democratic culture, emotional intelligence, and Russian culture and society.