Goffman Turns to Me and Says, “Only a Schmuck Studies His Own Life”

This conversation with Gary Alan Fine, John Evans Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, was recorded over the phone on August 21, 2009. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Fine edited the transcript and approved posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”

Of Forfeiture, Facilitation and Foreign Innocent Owners: Is a Bank Account Containing Parallel Market Funds Fair Game?

Based on sworn testimony that 680 bank accounts in the United States containing nearly $400 million\u27 were the operating accounts of the Medellin cartel, U.S. District Judge William C. O\u27Kelley issued an order temporarily restraining them on April 16, 1990

In Search of the Quadrennial Perennials

Notes and Querie

Tiny Publics and Social Worlds—Toward a Sociology of the Local. Gary Alan Fine in Conversation With Reiner Keller

Gary Alan FINE gehört weltweit zu den prominentesten Persönlichkeiten der zeitgenössischen soziologischen Ethnografie. In diesem Gespräch spricht er über Einflüsse in seiner akademischen Laufbahn und prägende intellektuelle Entscheidungen. Er gilt als "serieller Ethnograf", der in zahlreichen Feldkontexten gearbeitet hat und dabei einerseits Kleingruppen und eine von Menschen bevölkerte Ethnografie favorisiert, sich andererseits mit Gerüchten, Klatsch und moralischen Geschichten beschäftigt, die in kleinen und größeren Publiken erzählt werden. FINE beschreibt sein theoretisches Kerninteresse als die Untersuchung des Wechselspiels von Struktur, Interaktion und Kultur. In seinem Werk analysiert er die vielfältigen ortsgebundenen Arten und Weisen, in denen Gesellschaft von Menschen in formellen und informellen sozialen Settings verwirklicht wird, angefangen bei Baseballteams über Restaurantküchen oder die Wetterberichterstattung bis hin zum Schachspielen –um nur einige wenige Gegenstände seiner Forschungen zu nennen. Wesentlich beeinflusst durch symbolisch-interaktionistisches Denken und im Rekurs auf weitere wichtige Perspektiven auf soziale Welten plädiert er für eine selbstbewusste Haltung der ethnografischen Forschung und des ethnografischen Schreibens sowie für die Bedeutung der Konzeptarbeit in einer theorie-informierten empirischen Soziologie dessen, was Menschen zusammen tun.Gary Alan FINE is among the most prominent figures in contemporary sociological ethnography worldwide. In this conversation, he talks about influences in his academic career and key intellectual choices. Considered to be a "serial ethnographer" who has worked in multiple settings, his work focuses on small groups and peopled ethnography, as well as on rumors, gossip, and moral story telling in tiny and larger publics. FINE describes his core theoretical interest as residing in the interplay of structure, interaction, and culture and discusses the multiple local ways society is realized by people in formal and informal social settings: ranging from baseball teams, restaurant kitchens, weather reporting to chess players—to name but a few research sites. Influenced by symbolic interactionist thinking and other important approaches to social worlds, he argues for a confident voice of ethnographic research and writing as well as the importance of conceptual work in a theory-informed empirical sociology of what people do together

Single Synaptic Events Evoke NMDA Receptor–Mediated Release of Calcium from Internal Stores in Hippocampal Dendritic Spines

AbstractWe have used confocal microscopy to monitor synaptically evoked Ca2+ transients in the dendritic spines of hippocampal pyramidal cells. Individual spines respond to single afferent stimuli (<0.1 Hz) with Ca2+ transients or failures, reflecting the probability of transmitter release at the activated synapse. Both AMPA and NMDA glutamate receptor antagonists block the synaptically evoked Ca2+ transients; the block by AMPA antagonists is relieved by low Mg2+. The Ca2+ transients are mainly due to the release of calcium from internal stores, since they are abolished by antagonists of calcium-induced calcium release (CICR); CICR antagonists, however, do not depress spine Ca2+ transients generated by backpropagating action potentials. These results have implications for synaptic plasticity, since they show that synaptic stimulation can activate NMDA receptors, evoking substantial Ca2+ release from the internal stores in spines without inducing long-term potentiation (LTP) or depression (LTD)

The Meso-World: Tiny Publics and Political Action

In recent decades, sociologists have too often ignored the group level—the meso-level of analysis—in their emphasis on either the individual or the institution. This unfortunate absence misses much of what is central to a sociological analysis of community based on “action.” I draw upon Erving Goffman’s (1983) concept of the interaction order as I argue that a rigorous political sociology requires a focus on group cultures and tiny publics. Group dynamics, idiocultures, and interaction routines are central in creating social order. This approach to civic life draws from the pragmatism of John Dewey, as well as the broad tradition of symbolic interactionist theorists. Ultimately, I argue that a commitment to local action constitutes a commitment to a more extended social system