A thorough and thoughtful introduction to a philosophically-minded sociologist.
A series of lectures on the groundbreaking work of sociologist Erving Goffman.
Born in Canada and educated at the University of Chicago, Goffman was such an original sociologist that his work often “puzzled his sociological colleagues.” Hood, a professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, here furnishes more than two dozen lectures on Goffman’s wide-ranging thought, presenting discussions that both explicate his core ideas with clarity and challenge them. At the heart of Goffman’s approach is the individual self, which he saw as both socially constructed and real, insofar as its existence generates realsocietal and moral consequences. His approach falls within the realm of functionalism—his treatment of the self is consistently as a moral being—but within that tradition he introduces something new and controversial: microsociology, which takes as the basic unit of analysis the “the face-to-face social situation or ‘encounter.’” With impressive accessibility, the author explores the extent to which Goffman’s “methodological underpinnings” are consistent with sociology as an empirical science and the degree to which it “looks suspiciously like philosophy,” especially given his subject’s peculiar prose, which displays the “teasing artfulness of a brilliant writer.” (“What is striking about Goffman’s writing is the mood or tone of wry irony, of sympathetic engagement coupled with detached disdain.”) Goffman’s work is important and profound, and by placing the methodological aspect of his endeavors at the center of these lectures, Hood has provided a concise introduction to his challenging thought. This is not a mere summary of Goffman’s work but a provocative extension of it, an attempt to “move beyond Goffman’s beginnings.” For anyone interested in Goffman or contemporary sociology, or just the problems posed by trying to understand society, this is a valuable resource.
A thorough and thoughtful introduction to a philosophically-minded sociologist.Pub Date: July 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781959930532
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Authors' Tranquility Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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