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1/7

On Rereading The Presentation of Self: Some ReflectionsAuthor(s): ANTHONY GIDDENSSource: Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 290-295Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25677370.

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2/7

Goffman

ssous

a^^SS

On

Rereading

The

Presentation

of Self: Some

Reflections

ANTHONYIDD6NS

London

School

of

Economics

It is

over

twenty

years

since

I

opened

The

Presentation

of Self

in

Everyday Life

(Goffman [1959]

1990).

Indeed,

in

searching

through

my

books,

I

found

it

had

disappeared

from the shelves

at

some

point

over

that

peri

od. So

I

had

to

order

a

new one.

It

came

resplendent

in

an

edition

published

by

Penguin books, showing that Goffman

reached audiences

stretching

well

beyond

those

tapped by

most

academic authors.

I

got

a

few

surprises looking

at

the

book

again

after

all

this time. I'd

forgotten

how

anthropological

the book is?the

sort

of

man

from-Mars

style

that Goffman

deploys.

He

describes the work

as

"a

sort

of

handbook"

and,

alternatively,

as

a

"report."

His

own

PhD

on

the

Shetland Islands

is

quite frequently

referred

to?a

study

that

falls into the

catego

ry

of what he calls

"respectable

researches,"

where

regularities

of

behavior

are

"reliably

recorded."

In

the

text,

these

examples

taken

from

empirical

field

work

famously

jostle

with

quotations

and observations from

literary

texts.

Goffman

uses

anthropological

method,

but he

is

not

really acting

as an

anthropolo

gist?the book presumes and draws upon tacit

knowledge

in which the author and reader

have

to

collaborate.

He

points

up

the "alien"

nature of

everyday

practices

when

they

are

looked

at

"from the

outside";

yet

in

most

cases

he

is

all

too

plainly

an

insider.

He

would have

to

be

because,

although

he

writes in

an

anthro

pological

vein,

he is

far

more

concerned

with

the

everyday

and

themundane than

the

exotic.

Moreover,

Goffman

is

not

really

concerned,

as

most anthropologists are,with uncovering cul

tural

divergence

or

difference. His

territory

s

a

universal

one,

since

much of what he has

to

say

applies

to

all cultures.

I

forgot

how

little

there is

about

language

in

the book.

I

used

to

teach

about Goffman

and

I

suppose

after

a

while

his various

books

tended to

merge

seamlessly

in

my

mind.

Even

more

than

Harold

Garfinkel,

Goffman

uncov

ered and

displayed

to

view the

contextuality

of

language?tracing

a

route

that

arrived,

in

a

virtually independent

manner?at

conclusions

that

Ludwig

Wittgenstein

reached

in

a

far

more

tortuous,

philosophical

way.

Language

is

not

just

a

matter

of

"difference,"

as

the

struc

turalists argue?all language-use is heavily

and

irremediably

context-saturated,

and

based

on

a

multiplicity

of forms of

tacit

knowledge,

awareness

of

context,

and

bodily

gesture,

which couldn't

themselves

be

put

into

words.

There

is

a

great

deal

about communication

in

Presentation

of Self?indeed

in

a sense

it is all

about communication?but

Goffman

hadn't

yet

pursued

the

implications

he

would

later

draw.

(There

is

just

one

place

in

the

text

where

all

this is

previsaged.

It

iswhere he discusses

the

expressions

'Good Lord ' and

'My

God '

and how

they

are

used

to

display

recognition

of

disjunctures

in

everyday performance.

A

person

might

say

'Good Lord '

if

reminded

of

an

appointment

he

or

she

forgot

about.

The

expression,

with

its

religious

overtone,

con

veys

to

the listener that

the

individual

accepts

the

importance

of

the

lapse

and the

need

to

repair it.)

I

was

struck

by

what

a

flat

style

Goffman

adopts.

He

uses

many

colorful

quotations,

and

plainly

selected them

with

an

eye

to

their

effect

on

the reader?their "sit

up

and take

notice"

quality.

One

such anecdote

is the

"novelistic

incident,"

an

early

quote

from

a

work

by

the

novelist

William

Sansom.

It

con

cerns

Preedy,

a

"vacationing Englishman"

in

Spain,

and

is

used

to

highlight

the

distinction

he makes between expressions of self-identity

"given"

deliberately

to

others,

and those

inad

vertently "given

off."

Preedy's

elaborate

per

sonal

rituals

on

the

beach and

getting

into the

sea?designed

to

impress

others with his

sophistication

and

sang-froid?are

described

by

the

novelist

with

a

proper

sense

of

irony

and

are

designed

to

amuse

as

well

as

instruct.

290

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3/7

ON

R R

RDING

TH PR S

NTf)TIONf

S

LF

291

Goffman sometimes allows himself

little

digs

of

his

own

when he

describes

the

contrived

nature

of

some

of

our

attempts

to create

a

cer

tain

impression

of others.

Mostly,

however,

his

own style is dry as dust, as if to say that at

least

he?Goffman?is

confining

his

own

impression-management

to

the business

of

academic

analysis.

This

can't

be

wholly

true,

though,

since he

displayed

so

much artfulness

in

his selection of

quotation.

Goffman is careful

to

qualify

the dra

maturgical metaphor.

No

aspect

of

Presentation

of Self'has

attracted

more

critical

attention

than

its

use

of what

Goffman

describes as "the

projections

... of the theatri

cal

performance."

Goffman makes

it

clear,

however,

how

aware

he

is

of

the

limitations of

this

approach, speaking

of its "obvious

short

comings"?even

if

in

the end he

is less

than

wholly

consistent

in

what

he

says

about those

shortcomings.

The theatre is

all

about

make

believe and

is

meticulously prepared

before

hand.

In

everyday

life

by

contrast,

"things

are

real" and performances "sometimes notwell

rehearsed."

(Yet,

interestingly,

offman

quali

fies the statement

'things

are

real'

by

putting

the word

'presumably'

before

it).

On

stage,

actors

present

themselves

as

characters inter

acting

with other

players.

However,

unlike

in

"real life" there

is

a

third

party

present:

the

audience.

In

the conclusion

to

his

book,

Goffman

suggests

that

the

dramaturgical

approach

is

merely

one

"perspective"

among

several others.A segment of interactionmay

be

viewed

"technically," "politically,"

"struc

turally,"

nd

"culturally"

as

well

as

in

terms

of

the

metaphor

of

theatre.

He then

qualifies

even

further

in

his final

two

or

three

para

graphs:

"And

so

here

the

language

and

mask

of

the

stage

will

be

dropped."

It

formed,

he

suggests,

simply

a

sort

of

scaffold?a

prepara

tory

phrase

to

a

construction

of

a

building

as

such.

But

scaffolds

are

built

only

in

order

to

be

later taken down?the substance of thebuild

ing

is

actually

"the

structure

of

social

encoun

ters."

Much

importance

is

given

to

collaborative

settings,

as

contrasted

to

the activities of the

single

performer.

We

are

all

actors

as

it

were,

but the

play's

the

thing.

The

preening

of

Preedy

is

actually

an

unusual

vignette

in

the

context

of

the book.

Most

of

it is

concerned

with

mutually

organized

settings

in

which

groups

of

actors

are

involved.

Actors

normal

ly

function

as

"teams,"

in

settings

in

which

the

main point of the performance is to express

and

regulate

a

series of tasks-in-hand

rather

than

display

the

personal qualities

of the

actor.

The

study

of

trust

in

differing

areas

of

the

social sciences

has

become

a

major

preoccu

pation

since Goffman

wrote

Presentation

of

Self?he

had

a

lot

to

say

of relevance

to

it.

Achieving

the trust of

others

in

social situa

tions is

partly

accomplished by sustaining

a

collective

impression

of

competence- "pro

fessionalism" on the

part

of the

disparate

groups

of

waiters,

airline

personnel,

and

med

ical

staff that crowd Goffman's

pages

is

partly

a

matter

of

personal compatibility,

but is also

very

much also

a

matter

of

collective

impres

sion

management.

There is collusion involved

and sometimes

outright

deception

or

sleight

of

hand.

Mostly,

however,

he

says,

"team-work"

depends

upon

an

intrinsic

authenticity

which

cannot be reduced to mere ritual. Not all

restaurant

staff,

air

transportation

workers,

doctors,

or

nurses

"know

what

they

re

doing,"

but the

vast

majority

have

to,

or

the

whole

enterprise

would

soon

collapse.

Rereading

Presentation

of Self

after

so

much

time

away

is

to

reexperience

its

com

pelling

power.

Goffman

may

have drawn

upon

Simmel,

Cooley,

Durkheim,

and

Radcliffe

Brown,

but

in

large

part

he

mapped

out

new

territory y looking for the unfamiliar in the

familiar?and

vice

versa.

He

is the theoristof

copresence;

much

more

than

that,

he

explored

the

massively

complex

nature

of what

copres

ence

actually

is.

Copresence?the

behavior

of

subjects

who

are

confined

together

for

some

while?has distinctive

features

that

more

impersonal

connections

necessarily

lack.

Yet

it

is

Goffman's

achievement

to

have shown

that

the

grand

institutions of

society

both

operate

through,

presume,

yet

at the same time struc

ture,

the rituals that

people

follow when

they

are

together

in

public places.

Durkheim

argued

with

great

force and

conviction that

society

is

far

more

than

just

the

sum

of its individual

actors,

and

he

was

entire

ly right

to

do

so.

Yet he

was never

able

to

relate

that

fundamental

insight

to

an

account

of



4/7

292

SOCIAL

SVCHOLOGV

UART6RLY

agency;

as

a

consequence,

in

his

writings

we

all

tend

to

appear

as

the

playthings

of social

forces

much

more

powerful

than

ourselves.

Goffman showed the

way

out

of this

impasse.

"Society" is always and everywhere the cre

ation

of

highly

skilled and

knowledgeable

agents.

Yet

the

continuous, minute,

and

amazingly complicated

way

in

which

we

"bring

off"

social lifewith

others at

the

same

time

depends

fundamentally

upon

shared

forms

of tacit

knowledge

that

can

in

no sense

be reduced

to

the

specific

actions

of

individ

uals.

Presentation

of Self

retains

an

enduring

importance

too because of the

weight

it

gives

to

the

emotions,

a

major

aspect

of

Goffman's

originality.

"Impression

management"

at

first

blush

appears

as

something cognitive

and in

some

part

of

course

it

is.

Yet

as

organized

in

the

context

of

everyday

rituals,

and done

in

a

collaborative

way,

it is

the

key

to

the

conti

nuity

of

self

and

the containment

or

regula

tion

of

emotion.

Freud regarded repression as internal to

the

personality,

and

constructed

an

elaborate

theory

of neurosis and

psychosis

around it.

In

Presentation

of Self

Goffman shows that

a

great

deal of

emotional

management

pro

ceeds

socially.

In

"back

regions"?such

as

the

kitchen

in

a

restaurant,

hidden from the

view of the

customers?people

are

able

to

express

feelings

of

frustration

or

rage

that

they

must

carefully

conceal

in

their front

region performances. They might make fun

of their

patrons

too.

Back

regions

hence

form

a

safety

valve for emotions that

might

other

wise "flood

out"

and

seriously compromise

the

competence

which the

performers

want to

put

on

display.

Goffman doesn't

write

much about

mad

ness

in Presentation

of Self

but all

the

ele

ments

of his later

ruminations about

it

are

there

in

the book. Mental

illness,

or

at

least

certain

forms

of

it,

he

implies,

resides

more

in the

minutiae

of

everyday

life than

in

grand

delusions.

Those

who

we

label

as

"mad,"

both

in

a

"serious" and

in

a

more

trivial

day

to-day

sense,

either

cannot

or

will

not

deploy.

the

cues

that "normal"

people

routinely

make

use

of

to

show

to

others that

they

are

compe

tent

agents.

The

mentally

disturbed

sit

or

stand

too

close

to

others,

and either

stare at

or

refuse the

gaze

of the other

altogether;

they

don't

"listen"

(i.e.,

demonstrate

atten

tiveness)

to

what

others

are

saying,

or

inter

rupt them aggressively. They may sit with

their

limbs

slack,

unable

or

unwilling

to

deploy

the

continuous

monitoring

of

bodily

appearance

and

demeanor that is taken for

granted

in

the

diverse

contexts

of social life.

The

protective

practices

that

prevent

social

activity

from

being

swamped by

anxi

eties

or

hatreds

are

marvellously

analyzed by

Goffman

in

Presentation

of Self.

Discretion

and

tact

play

a

fundamental role here.

They

may

seem

like

quite

trivial

aspects

of

perfor

mances,

but

they

are

deeply

influential.

Tact

and

circumspection,

Goffman

shows,

are

demanded

not

only

of

"performers"

but of

"audiences"

too. For

instance,

people

rou

tinely

stay

away

from

areas

in

restaurants,

homes,

or

workplaces

to

which

they

have

not

been

invited,

actively helping

sustain the

"show"

that is

being

put

on.

If

an

outsider

for

some reason enters a back region, he or she

will

typically give

those

in

it

a

chance

to

reassemble their

public

selves,

even

if

only

by

a

discrete knock

on

the door.

When

in

the

back

region,

the

"intruder"

normally

observes due discretion

by

not

glancing

around

too

openly

at

what is in the

room,

in

case

it

could

compromise

the

identity

the

occupier

is

offering.

"Intimates"?those

who

know the

performer

well?may

be free

to

flout some of these restrictions, since they

are

already privy

to

at

least

some

of

the

per

former's

secrets.

Presentation

of

Self

has

been

influential

in

almost

every

social science

discipline,

especially sociology,

social

psychology,

anthropology,

and

linguistics.

Its

impact

has

extended

through

to

theatre studies

(natural

ly),

media and cultural studies?and

to

the

theatre

itself.

We

know that

playwrights

Tom

Stoppard

and Michael

Frayn

have read

Goffman.

I'm not

sure

that Harold

Pinter

ever

did,

but

his

writing

ranges

over

much of

the

same

territory, lthough

Goffman's

pic

ture

of

everyday

life

on

the

face of

things

is

far

more

benign

than that of Pinter.

For

all of its fine

qualities,

and

its

staying

power,

from its first

publication

Presentation



5/7

ON

R R RDING

TH PR S NTRTION f

S

lf

293

of

Self

met

with

a

barrage

of

criticism

from

other

social

scientists.1

One could

summarize

these

as

worries

about:

(1)

the

status

of the

dramaturgical

metaphor;

(2)

the absence

of

a

discussion of power; (3) the lack of a sense of

history

or

institutional

change

in

Goffinan's

work;

and

(4)

the

ambiguous

role

of "reflexiv

ity,"

term

Goffman

doesn't

make

any

play

with,

but

arguably

is

intrinsic

to

his

writings.

The first

of these

sets

of

objections

has

probably

been

most

commented

on,

but

seems

to

me

the least

interesting.

I

see

no

particular

difficulty

in

comparing

aspects

of social

life

to

the

theatre,

and

it

is

an

idea

that

goes

back

centuries.

Nor is there

any

problem

in

taking

over

concepts

coming

from

the

theatre

into the

social

sciences,

as

long

as

they

are

carefully

defined

and used.

The notion

of "role" is

per

haps

the

most

prominent

example.

As

men

tioned,

Goffman surrounds

the theatrical

analogies

he

uses

with

a

host

of

qualifications

about their

application

to

the

wider

social

world.

Even if

offman

did

not

especially

per

sistwith it fterwards,as a heuristic device the

language

of

"actors,"

"performances,"

"audi

ences"

and

so

forth

proved

highly

valuable

in

stimulating

the

novel

ideas thathe elaborated.

Power

is

a

different

story.

One couldn't

say

that

power

and domination

are

altogether

absent

from

Presentation

of

Self.

Certain

pas

sages

and sections

of the book

are

about

how

we

"do"

power.

For

instance Goffman

offers

a

discussion

of

how filial deference?and

there

fore differential

power

between

the

genera

tions?was

organized

in

traditional

China,

based

upon

the

work

La

Civilisation

Chinoise,

written

by

Marcel

Granet

(1929).

Elaborate

ritual and

careful

bodily

demeanor

ensure

that

the

son

treats

his father

as

"a

chief"

...

"One

comes

night

and

morning

to

pay

homage.

After

which,

one

waits

for orders."

Yet

there

is

no

systematic

discussion

of

power inPresentation of Self nor as far as I

know

in

any

other of Goffman's

major

works.

He

has

a

possible

defense:

he

is concerned

with

interpersonal

interaction between

indi

viduals

in situations of

copresence.

Any

influ

1

See

the

diversity

of critical

appraisals

offered

in

Fine,

Manning,

and Smith 2000.

ences

that

go

beyond

such situations

he

simply

defines

as

not

his

area

of

concern?let

others,

using

different

perspectives, explore

them.

A

moment's

reflection,

however,

will

show

that

such a defence is inadequate. Copresence

could

never

be defined

as

simply

studying

vis

ible circumstances

inwhich individuals

inter

act

with

one

another. The

vast

bulk of

what

frames

situations

of

copresence

is invisible?

it consists of

institutions,

oth taken

for

grant

ed,

but also drawn

upon,

by

the

parties

to

the

interaction.

This is

most

obvious

in

the

case

of

language

and

communication,

which

pre

sumes a

vast

apparatus

of rules and

signals

deployed by

a

linguistic

community.

Yet it is

also

true

of

systems

of

power,

which

both

structure,

yet

are

reproduced

by, everyday

rit

uals

of

different

sorts.

Presentation

of Self

would have

been

an

even

more

impressive study

if ithad contained

a

more

systematic analysis

of

this issue.

Consider the

example

of

professions,

which

in

one

guise

or

another

crop up

often

in thebook.

How doctors talk topatients, and how thecon

text

of interaction

is

structured,

expresses

much

larger

aspects

of medical

institutions,

including major

differentials

of

power.

It

would be

impossible

to

understand

fully

why

the interaction takes

the form

it

does

without

grasping

these.

They

are

not

just

a

"back

drop": they help

constitute,

as

well

as

being

constituted

by,

the

interaction.

Goffman discusses

"pieces"

of

interaction

mostly as separate segments?observations of

behavior

in

a

diversity

of times and

places.

Wilfully,

or

perhaps

as

a

by-product

of

his

fondness

for

describing

short

episodes

of

behavior,

the

pieces

are never

put

together.

t

one

point

in

resentation

of Self

for

example,

he

has

some

four

or

five

paragraphs

on

situa

tions

in

which

individuals

are

treated

as

"non

persons,"

an

obvious manifestation

of

power.

For

instance,

in

the

Deep

South,

whites would

discuss their slaves in their

presence

as

though

they

were

not

there.

Slaves,

like

servants

in

medieval

courtly society,

were

expected

to

enter

freely

intoback

regions,

thebasis

that

no

management

of

impression

was

needed

for

them.

The

observation,

while

interesting,

is

not

followed

through

or

its

wider

implications

teased

out.



6/7

294

SOCIAL

SYCHOLOGY UflRT

RLY

What

applies

to

power

applies

also

to

his

tory.

Anthropologists

who

study

small oral

cultures

may

know little of their

history

and

are

therefore

perhaps justified

in

acting

as

if it

can be ignored. The same is not true of con

temporary

societies

however,

from

which

the

vast

majority

of

Goffman's

examples

come.

Of

course,

one can

put

Presentation

of

Self

alongside

other

texts,

and

in

this

way

attempt

to

add

an

historical

dimension

to

some

of the

examples

Goffman

discusses.

In

his

celebrat

ed book The

Civilizing

Process

(1969),

for

example,

Norbert Elias

analyses

the

historical

origins

of

civility

in

what

Goffman would call

front-region

behavior and the

social

organiza

tion

of

privacy.2

Elias

was

far

more

influenced

by

Freud

than

Goffman

was,

but

plainly

the

interactions Goffman discussed

in

everyday

life

do

have

an

evolution that is

absolutely

intrinsic

to

their character. The

social

psychol

ogist

Thomas

Scheff

is

one

among

several

prominent

authors who

have

developed

these

connections in

an

interesting

and

potentially

highly fruitful way?he relates them to

episodes

of

deadly

violence

as

in

war

(Scheff

1999).

Lack

of attention

to

reflexivity

in

Presentation

of Self?and

in

Goffman's subse

quent

works?is

puzzling.

Reflexivity

can

be

interpreted

on two

levels:

in

relation

to

the

author and

in

relation

to

the

contexts

of social

life

with

which he is concerned. Goffman

rarely

seems

"present"

in

his

books, any

more

than Durkheim

or

Radcliffe-Brown did.

Yet

there

are

plenty

of

questions

to

be

asked.

What

impression

did

Goffman want

Presentation

of

Self

to

make

on

the

reader?

Every

book is

about

impression

management,

since books

are

designed

to

convey

certain

messages,

not

only

about what the

text

"says"

but about the

impressions

it

also

"gives."

In

using

so

many

fictional

examples,

yet

introducing

them

in

a

casual and off-handway, Presentation of Self

gives

an

impression

of

lightly

worn

erudition

and also

a

certain

cool.

It

is

clearly designed

to

draw readers

in

and

cause

them

to

reflect

upon

their

own

lives?"now

that

Goffman

has

pointed

it

out,

I

recognize

that,

yes,

this

is

2

For

a

relevant

discussion,

see

Kasson 1990.

what

I

do,

how others

react

to

me

and how

I

react to

them."

The author

appeals

to

the

same

body

of

tacit

knowledge

in

persuading

the

reader of

his

argument

as

the

characters that

appear in the text.

What

does Goffman

actually

mean

when

he

compares

his

use

of "the

language

and

mask

of

the

stage"

to

scaffolding

that

can

be

dismantled

once

the

job

is

done?

He

could

mean

something

banal?that the

metaphor

of

the theatre

directed

his

attention

both

to

a

"subject-matter"

(copresence)

and

a

way

of

analyzing

it,

which

when

uncovered,

could

better be

discussed without the framework

that

originally

inspired

it.

et

Goffman's

comments

raise the

problematic?and,

one

would

have

thought,

inescapable?issue

that

reflexivity

presumes

in

relation

to

itself.The student of

reflexivity

is

also

a

reflexive actor?the

sense

in

which

Goffman's

observations

are

"objec

tive"

then

becomes

harder

to

tease out.

Reflexivity

also

directly impacts

the

episodes

and

happenings

that

are

the

stuff

of

Goffman's work. In one sense, he is the

sophisticated

analyst

of

the

phenomenon.

He

shows that the

reflexive

monitoring

of the

body,

the

gaze,

and of

cues

routinely

given

and

given

off

by

others

is both

amazingly complex

and intrinsic

to

social life.

Yet

reflexivity

is

also

a

learning

process,

and

this

thought

leads

us

back

to

history.

All

social

actors

are

capa

ble

of

reflecting

the

conditions

of

their

action,

and

of

altering

them.

Not

only

are

they

capa

ble of it, theydo it all the time,both setting

into

motion

and

being

influenced

by

wider

problems

of

change

which

are

therebybrought

about.

I

findGoffman's disinclination

to

wres

tle

with

such

problems

frustrating.

The

Presentation

of

Self

first

published

in

1959,

was

Goffman's first

book.

It

was

suc

ceeded

by

a

dazzling variety

of

others,

each

and

every

one

of

them

a

major

achievement.

I

don't

think he

coped fully

with

the

range

of

problems

I

have

noted

above,

but he elaborat

ed

brilliantly

on

many

of the

observations

and

insights

introduced

in

resentation

of

Self.

His

most

directly

"structural"

work

was

his

study

of

"total

institutions"?organizations

such

as

asylums

or

prisons

in

which

individuals

are

kept

confined from the

larger

social world

(Goffman

1961).

Goffman's

originality

is

in



7/7

ON

R R

RDINGTH Pfl

S

NTflTIONf

S

Lf

295

full

display

in his

analysis,

but he

left

t

to

oth

ers

to

supply

thewider

developmental

context

in

which such institutions

ame

into

being

and

evolved.

It

was

Michel Foucault

(1975)

who

most

persuasively

showed how total

organiza

tions

connect

to

wider

processes

of

modern

ization and

to

power.

In

one

of

my essays

(Giddens

1988)

I

note

that,

ust

like

Durkheim,

Foucault

seemed

to

deny

to

individuals

those

very

qualities

as

agents

which

Goffman focused

upon

so

per

suasively.

The

mystery

of

the social world is

how

it

can

be

the

case

that

all

('competent')

human actors are highly skilled and knowl

edgeable

about

what

they

do and

why,

but

are

at

the

same

time

driven

by

social

forces

far

larger

than

themselves. Goffman

was

com

pletely

correct how

extraordinarily

complex

human

action and interaction

are,

and

that

they

have

to

be

actively

and

continuously

monitored

by

thosewho

produce

them.

Yet,

in

an era

of

globalization,

Durkheim's

stress

that

society

is far

greater

than the

sum

of

the indi

viduals who

compose

it seems tome more

acute

than

ever.

No

individual

possesses

more

than

a

miniscule

fraction of the

knowledge

upon

which social

continuity

and

order

depend;

yet

somehow

it all

more

or

less holds

together,

even

now

that

our

interdependence

with

others

is in

many ways

worldwide.

R F

R

NC S

Elias,

Norbert.

1969.

The

Civilizing

Process.

2

vol

umes.

Oxford,

UK:

Blackwell.

Fine,

Gary

Alan,

Philip Manning,

and

Gregory

W.

H.

Smith,

eds.

2000.

Erving Goffman.

4

volumes.

London,

UK:

Sage.

Foucault,

Michel.

1975.

Discipline

and

Punish: The

Birth

of

the

Prison.

New York: Random House.

Giddens,

Anthony.

1988.

"Goffman

as

a

Systematic

Social Theorist." Pp. 250-79 in Erving

Goffman:

Exploring

the Interaction

Order,

edit

ed

by

Paul

Drew and

Anthony

Wootton.

Cambridge,

UK:

Polity.

Goffman,

Erving.

[1959]

1990.

The

Presentation

of

Self

in

Everyday

Life.

New York:

Penguin.

-.

1961.

Asylums.

New

York:

Doubleday.

Granet,

Marcel. 1929.

La

civilisation

chinoise.

Paris,

France: Editions Albin

Michel.

Kasson,

John

F.

1990.

Rudeness and

Civility:

Manners

in

Nineteenth-Century

Urban

America. New

York: Hill andWang.

Scheff,

Thomas

J. 1999.

Being Mentally

III:

A

Sociological Theory.

New York: Aldine

de

Gruyter.

Anthony

Giddens

is

a

member

of

the

ouse

of

Lords,

a

Fellow

of

King's

College, Cambridge,

and

Emeritus

Professor

at

theLondon

School

of

Economics. He

was

Director

of

theLSE

from

1997

to

2003,

and

was

made

a

peer

in

2004.

He

has

honorary degrees

or

comparable

awards

from

21

uni

versities.He

is

an

honorary

ellow

of

the

American

Academy of

Arts and

Sciences,

the

Russian

Academy of

Science,

and the

Chinese

Academy

of

Social Sciences.

He

was

the BC Reith

Lecturer in

1999.

According

to

Google

Scholar, he is themost

widely

cited

sociologist

in theworld.His many

books include The Constitution

of

Society

(1984),

Beyond

Left and

Right

(1994),

The Third

Way

(1998),

and

Europe

in theGlobal

Age (2006).

His

most recent

major

work

is

The Politics

of Climate

Change

(2009).

His

books have been translated

into

more

than

forty

languages.

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