"Not then, men and their moments. Rather, moment and their men," writes Erving Goffman in the introduction to his groundbreaking 1967 Interaction Ritual, a stud
Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social
Sociologists Émile Durkheim, Erving Goffman and Randall Collins broadly suppose that ritual is foundational for social life. By contrast, this book argues that
This book shows how contemporary religious groups arrange very different sorts of rituals in order to achieve collective encounters with “the spirit.” Mixed
Microsociologists seek to capture social life as it is experienced, and in recent decades no one has championed the microsociological approach more fiercely tha