Goffman and Dramaturgical Theory

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drLaToya Stuckey Sociological Theory Dr.Mohanty April 26, 2011 Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Theory Erving Goffman was born in Alberta, Canada, on June 11, 1922; he died November 19, 1982 in Philadelphia, Pa. He was born to Max and Anne Goffman and he had one son. He received his bachelor's degree in 1945 from the University of Toronto, his master's degree in 1949 from the University of Chicago, and his PH.D in 1953 from the University of Chicago as well. He was a part of the American Sociological Association and served as president for two years, 1981-82. Erving Goffman was a sociologist and a writer known for his analyses of human interaction. He relied less on formal scientific method than on observation to explain contemporary life. Perhaps the beginning of Goffman's interest in sociology occurred in 1943-1944, when he worked temporarily at the National Film Board in Ottawa. Goffman wrote on subjects on the reasons why humans behave in public the way they do, the different forms of talk humans use, and from the point of view of humans. Roy Harris, in another Times Literary Supplement review, calls Goffman "a public private-eye. . . forever on the lookout for candid-camera evidence which might lead to divorce proceedings between ourselves and our social images,". (Goffman was one of the greatest North American sociologists of his generation. He was heavily influenced by George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer in developing his theoretical framework. He soon went to study face-to-interaction, also known as micro-sociology. Erving Goffman is often thought of as the last major thinker associated with the original Chicago School (Ritzer). Goffman published a series of books and essays that birth the dramaturgical analysis. Goffman defines self as a sense of which one is. Dramaturgical is a sociological perspective branched from the symbolic interactionism.

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