Erving Goffman (1922-1983) was born in Manville, Alberta, Canada. In 1953, he received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. Goffman was also a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Before his death in 1983, he received the MacIver Award (1961), the In Medias Res Award (1978), and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Goffman is considered the most important American sociological theorist of the second half of the 20th century. In 1963, Goffman published Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity to illustrate the lives of stigmatized individuals, those who are unable to conform to the standards that society calls "normal." Stigma (1963) was published after two other works by Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Asylums. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), Goffman uses face-to-face interactions as the object of his study. Goffman finds that individuals attempt to give others a certain perception of themselves by changing their appearance or mannerisms. Asylums, published in 1961, uses the anthropological technique of participant observation to record the lives of mental patients living in a psychiatric hospital. Patients at this hospital have experienced what Goffman calls “institutionalization,” in which they are socialized to conform to the “good patient” that the hospital, and furthermore society, expects of them. One can see, then, how Goffman came up with the idea for Stigma, a book dealing with the social interactions between "normal" people and stigmatized people, forced by associates... middle of paper... ....but rather perspectives.” In conclusion, Goffman illustrates how the study of stigma can be used to understand social issues related to deviations and deviance. Deviance exists in all societies. According to Goffman, “social deviants, as defined, flaunt their refusal to accept their place and are temporarily tolerated in this gestural rebellion, provided it is limited within the ecological boundaries of their community.” Although there are social norms within society that dictate how the stigmatized and the “normal” should interact, deviants act as a paradox to these expectations. Although Goffman adequately explains the interactions between the stigmatized and the “normals,” he fails to explain why people respond to stigmatization in this way. Works Cited Goffman, Erving. Stigma: notes on spoiled identity management. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.