Celebrating the life and work of Erving Goffman

"I have no universal cure for the ills of Sociology. A multitude of myopias limit the glimpse we get of our subject matter" (Erving Goffman, 1983: 2)

To mark 30 years since Erving Goffman published his Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association, the Cardiff School of Social Sciences recently held a special one-day conference.

Goffman's lecture in 1983 famously brought together many of the key themes that underpinned his life's work, to provide an overview of his intellectual vision and the significance of ritual, the face-to-face encounter, and relations between the micro and macro. 

The conference - 'Goffman and the Interaction Order: 30 years on' - aimed to consider Goffman's contribution to our understandings of society and his legacy.

Keynote speaker at the conference was American sociologist Professor Randall Collins who talked about the 'downstreaming' of Goffman's ideas to subsequent research trends.

Other contributions at the conference came from Paul Atkinson, Distinguished Professor at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Professor Gregory Smith (University of Salford) and former Cardiff PhD Student, Dr Susie Scott, who is now a reader at the University of Sussex.

Click here to view the abstracts from each speaker: