This interview with Samuel Heilman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York, was recorded over the phone on December 1, 2008. After Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, Dr. Heilman edited the transcript and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places