Dmitri Shalin Interview with Rodney Stark about Erving Goffman entitled Goffman Was Trying to Get Away with the Descriptions of Those Fairly Sane People as He Laid Out His Notion of Mental Illness

Abstract

This interview with Rodney Stark, Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and Co- Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, was recorded over the phone on November 25, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Stark edited the transcripts and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. 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