Introduction

If sociologists suggest that Erving Goffman’s legacy is secure, they probably mean that there is a discipline-wide consensus that he was an important figure. The awkward word here is “was.” It might mean that even though his work is well thought of—and perhaps even revered—it is no longer central to the sociological questions and concerns of today. When Goffman was in his prime, he was a major part of American sociology, but perhaps his legacy is about his former status, not his enduring influence on the day-to-day working practices of the current generation of sociologists. The antonym of legacy is exactly this—what is current—and so to the extent that “Goffman” and “legacy” appear in the same sentence, it may be that Goffman is broadly admired but not necessarily still influential.

If people who are not sociologists talk about someone’s legacy, it is far more likely that what they have in mind is the contents of a will. A legacy in this more legal way of thinking refers to the cash that some lucky folks will inherit. Etymologically, the word legacy comes to us from the Latin, legatus. This refers to a “delegated person” precisely in the sense of someone specified to receive something in a will.

There is also an interesting modern use of the word “legacy” from computer science. There a legacy refers to either a software or hardware system that has been superseded but is hard to get rid of because so many end users like it and do not want to give it up. So, a statistician might, referring to the SPSS program, say it has a legacy, just meaning that she wishes that her colleagues would drop it and switch to R.

This chapter is about the consequences of thinking about Goffman’s legacy in different ways. The argument I will make is the following: Goffman was a genius at developing concepts that easily capture our imagination and then securing them with poignant examples. As a result, he is widely cited because a large and diverse group of researchers pick up concepts from Goffman’s books and papers and apply them in their own work.